“I know, I know,” he said hastily.  “Don’t remind me of it!  My father was like that, you know.  My father shot at a man once because he was rude to my mother when he was drunk—­shot him right through the shoulder!  It raised the very deuce of a scandal down there in Honolulu!  He took Mother to Europe to get away from the fuss, and paid the man the Lord knows what to quiet the thing!”

“Yes, but life isn’t like that, Jim,” Julia protested.  “Life isn’t so simple!  Shooting at somebody, and buying his silence, and rushing off to Europe!  Why can’t you just say to yourself reasonably—­”

“‘Reasonably,’ dearest!” he echoed cheerfully, with a kiss.  “When was a jealous man ever reasonable!”

“But think how wonderfully happy we are, Jim,” she persisted wistfully.  “Suppose there is one part trouble, one part of your life that you don’t like, why can’t you be happy because ninety-nine parts of it are perfect?”

“I don’t know; talking with you here, I can’t understand it,” he said.  “But I get thinking—­I get thinking, and my heart begins to hammer, and I lie awake nights, and I’d like to get up and strangle someone—­”

His vehemence died into abashed silence before her grave eyes.

“I ought to be the one to stamp and rave over this,” Julia said.  “I ought to remind you that you knew my history when you married me; and you know life, too—­you were ten years older than I, and how much more experienced!  All I knew was learned at the settlement house, or from books.  And the reason I don’t rave and stamp, Jim,” she went on, “is because I am different from you.  I realize that that doesn’t help matters.  We must make the best of it now, we must help each other!  You see I have no pride about it.  I know I am better than many—­than most—­of these society women all about us, but I don’t force you to admit that.  They break every other commandment of God, yes, and that one, too, and they commit every one of the deadly sins!  It seems to me sometimes as if ‘gluttony, envy, and sloth’ were the very foundation on which the lives of some of these people rest, and as for pride and anger and lust, why, we take them for granted!  Yet, whoever thinks seriously of saying so?”

“You make me ashamed, Julie,” Jim said, after a pause, during which his eyes had not moved from her face.  “I can only say I’m sorry.  I’m very sorry!  Sometimes I think you’re a good deal bigger man than I am; but I can’t help it.  However, I’m going to try.  From to-night on I’m going to try.”

“We’ll both try,” Julia said, and they kissed each other.

CHAPTER V

Miss Toland, who had accepted Julia’s invitation for Thanksgiving, arrived unexpectedly on the afternoon before the holiday, to spend the night with the Studdifords.  It was a wild, wet day, settling down to heavy rain as the early darkness closed in, and the Pacific Avenue house presented a gloomy if magnificent aspect to the guest as she came in.  But Ellie beamingly directed her to the nursery, and here she found enough brightness to flood the house.