a bunch of spread-eagle politicians—­can’t you see that I’m all the science there is here?  And I can stand the cold and the bumpy roads and the lonely rides at night.  All I need is to have you here at home to welcome me.  I don’t expect you to be passionate—­not any more I don’t—­but I do expect you to appreciate my work.  I bring babies into the world, and save lives, and make cranky husbands quit being mean to their wives.  And then you go and moon over a Swede tailor because he can talk about how to put ruchings on a skirt!  Hell of a thing for a man to fuss over!”

She flew out at him:  “You make your side clear.  Let me give mine.  I admit all you say—­except about Erik.  But is it only you, and the baby, that want me to back you up, that demand things from me?  They’re all on me, the whole town!  I can feel their hot breaths on my neck!  Aunt Bessie and that horrible slavering old Uncle Whittier and Juanita and Mrs. Westlake and Mrs. Bogart and all of them.  And you welcome them, you encourage them to drag me down into their cave!  I won’t stand it!  Do you hear?  Now, right now, I’m done.  And it’s Erik who gives me the courage.  You say he just thinks about ruches (which do not usually go on skirts, by the way!).  I tell you he thinks about God, the God that Mrs. Bogart covers up with greasy gingham wrappers!  Erik will be a great man some day, and if I could contribute one tiny bit to his success——­”

“Wait, wait, wait now!  Hold up!  You’re assuming that your Erik will make good.  As a matter of fact, at my age he’ll be running a one-man tailor shop in some burg about the size of Schoenstrom.”

“He will not!”

“That’s what he’s headed for now all right, and he’s twenty-five or -six and——­What’s he done to make you think he’ll ever be anything but a pants-presser?”

“He has sensitiveness and talent——­”

“Wait now!  What has he actually done in the art line?  Has he done one first-class picture or—­sketch, d’ you call it?  Or one poem, or played the piano, or anything except gas about what he’s going to do?”

She looked thoughtful.

“Then it’s a hundred to one shot that he never will.  Way I understand it, even these fellows that do something pretty good at home and get to go to art school, there ain’t more than one out of ten of ’em, maybe one out of a hundred, that ever get above grinding out a bum living—­about as artistic as plumbing.  And when it comes down to this tailor, why, can’t you see—­you that take on so about psychology—­can’t you see that it’s just by contrast with folks like Doc McGanum or Lym Cass that this fellow seems artistic?  Suppose you’d met up with him first in one of these reg’lar New York studios!  You wouldn’t notice him any more ’n a rabbit!”

She huddled over folded hands like a temple virgin shivering on her knees before the thin warmth of a brazier.  She could not answer.