The weeks fled by.  Wallace began to talk of moving to New York.  It was always their dream.  Instinctively they wanted New York.  Their talk of it, their plans for it, were as enthusiastic as they were ignorant, if Wallace could only get the chance to play on Broadway!  That seemed to both of them the goal of their ambition.  Always hopeful of another part, Martie began to read and study seriously.  She had much spare time, and she used it.  From everybody and everything about her she learned:  a few German phrases from the rheumatic old man whose wife kept the lodging house; Juliet’s lines and the lines of Lady Macbeth from Mabel’s shabby books; and something of millinery from the little Irishwoman who kept a shop on the corner, with “Elise” written across its window.  She learned all of Wallace’s parts, and usually Mabel’s as well.  Often she went to the piano in the musty parlour of the Geary Street house and played “The Two Grenadiers” and “Absent.”  She brimmed with energy; while Wallace or Mabel wrangled with the old costumier, Martie was busily folding and smoothing the garments of jesters and clowns and Dolly Vardens.  She had a curious instinct for trade terms; she could not buy a yard of veiling without an eager little talk with the saleswoman; the chance phrase of a conductor or the woman in the French laundry amused and interested her.

Away from all the repressing influences of her childhood, healthy and happy, she met the claims of the new state with a splendid and unthinking passion.  To yield herself generously and supremely was the only natural thing; she had no dread and no regret.  From the old life she brought to this hour only an instinctive reticence, so that Mabel never had the long talks and the short talks she had anticipated with the bride, and never dared say a word to Martie that might not have been as safely said to Bernadette.

CHAPTER II

On A hot Sunday in early March Martie came back from church to find Wallace gone.  She had had no breakfast, but had stopped on the way home to get six enormous oranges in a paper bag.  The heat had given her a stupid headache, and she felt limp and tired.  It was delicious to undress, to climb into the smoothed bed, and to sink back against the pillows.

A bulky newspaper, smelling of printer’s ink, was on the chair beside her bed, but Martie did not open it for a while.  Serious thoughts held her.  Opening her orange, she said to herself, with a little flutter at her heart, that it must be so.  She was going to have a baby!

Fear and pride shook her.  It seemed a tremendous thing; not at all like the other babies other women had been having since time began.  She could not believe it—­of herself, Martie Monroe, who had been an ignorant girl only a few months ago!

Yet she had been vaguely suspecting the state of affairs for more than a week; when morning after morning found her languid and weary, when Wallace’s fork crushing an egg-yolk had given her a sudden sensation of nausea.  She felt so stupid, so tired all the time.  She could not sleep at night; she could hardly stay awake in the daytime.