“And then we’ll have eternity together!” said the dusty Billy, with an arm about her.

“And not a minute too long!” answered his suddenly serious wife.

“You absolutely radiate content, Sue,” Anna said to her wistfully, the next day.

Anna had come early to Oakland, to have luncheon and a few hours’ gossip with her hostess before the family’s arrival for the six o’clock dinner.  The doctor’s wife reached the gate in her own handsome little limousine, and Susan had shared her welcome of Anna with enthusiasm for Anna’s loose great sealskin coat.

“Take the baby and let me try it on,” said Susan.  “Woman—­it is the most gorgeous thing I ever saw!”

“Conrad says I will need it in the east,—­we go after Christmas,” Anna said, her face buried against the baby.

Susan, having satisfied herself that what she really wanted, when Billy’s ship came in, was a big sealskin coat, had taken her guest upstairs, to share the scuffle that preceded the boys’ naps, and hold Josephine while Susan put the big bedroom in order, and laid out the little white suits for the afternoon.

Now the two women were sitting together, Susan in a rocker, with her sleepy little daughter in the curve of her arm, Anna in a deep low chair, with her head thrown back, and her eyes on the baby.

“Radiate happiness?” Susan echoed briskly, “My dear, you make me ashamed.  Why, there are whole days when I get really snappy and peevish,—­truly I do! running from morning until night.  As for getting up in the dead of night, to feed the baby, Billy says I look like desolation—­’like something the cat dragged in,’ was his latest pretty compliment.  But no,” Susan interrupted herself honestly, “I won’t deny it.  I am happy.  I am the happiest woman in the world.”

“Yet you always used to begin your castles in Spain with a million dollars,” Anna said, half-wistfully, half-curiously.  “Everything else being equal, Sue,” she pursued, “wouldn’t you rather be rich?”

“Everything else never is equal,” Susan answered thoughtfully.  “I used to think it was—­but it’s not!  Now, for instance, take the case of Isabel Wallace.  Isabel is rich and beautiful, she has a good husband,—­to me he’s rather tame, but probably she thinks of Billy as a cave-man, so that doesn’t count!—­she has everything money can buy, she has a gorgeous little boy, older than Mart, and now she has a girl, two or three months old.  And she really is a darling, Nance, you never liked her particularly—–­”

“Well, she was so perfect,” pleaded Anna smiling, “so gravely wise and considerate and low-voiced, and light-footed—–!”