Usually Martie had Swain’s famous toasted muffins for her breakfast, daintily playing with coffee and fruit while Wallace disposed of cereal, eggs and ham, and fried potatoes.  She used to marvel that he never grew fat on this hearty fare; sometimes he had sharp touches of indigestion.

Over their meal they talked untiringly, marvelling anew at the miracle of their finding each other.  Martie learned her husband’s nature as if it had been a book.  Sensitive here—­evasive there; a little coarse, perhaps, a little simple.  However surprising his differences it was for her to adapt herself.  She was almost glad when his unconscious demands required of her the smallest sacrifice; getting so much, how glad she was to give!

After breakfast, when Wallace was not rehearsing and they were free to amuse themselves, they prowled through the Chinese quarter, and through the Italian colony.  They rode on windy “dummies” out to the beach, and went scattering peanut shells along the wet sands.  They visited the Park, the Mint, and the big baths, or crossed to Oakland or Sausalito, where Martie learned to swim.  Martie found Wallace tireless in his appetite for excursions, and committed herself cheerfully to his guidance.  Catching a train, they rejoiced; missing it, they were none the less happy.

Twice a week a matinee performance brought Wallace to the Granada Theatre at one o’clock.  On other days, rehearsals began at eleven and ended at three or occasionally as late as four.  The theatre life charmed Martie like a fairy tale.  She never grew tired of its thrill.

It was gratifying in the first place to enter the door marked “Stage” with a supplementary legend, no admittance, and pass the old doorkeeper who knew and liked her.  The dark passages beyond, smelling of escaping gas and damp straw, of unaired rooms and plumbing and fresh paint, were perfumed with romance to her, as were the little dressing rooms with old photographs stuck in the loosened wallpaper and dim initials scratched on the bare walls, and odd wigs and scarfs and paint jars littering the shelves.  Wallace making up his face was an exalted being in the eyes of his wife.

When the play began, she took her station in the wings—­silent, unobtrusive, eager to keep out of everybody’s way, eager not to miss a word of the play.  The man over her head, busy with his lights; the one or two shirt-sleeved, elderly men who invariably stood dispassionately watching the performance; the stage-hands; the various members of the cast:  for all these she had a smile, and their answering smiles were Martie’s delight.

“Take off ten pounds, Martie, and Bellew will give you a show some time!” said Maybelle La Rue, who was Mabel Cluett in private life.  Martie gasped at the mere thought.  She determined to diet.