"That's all!"
"And then you'll come back, and we'll go have Spanish omelette at the Poodle Dog, won't we?"
"Oh, Wallie, darling, I hope—I hope we will!"
She gasped on a long breath, and dried her eyes.
"How much money have you got, dearie?"
"About—I don't know. About four dollars, I think."
"Well, here—" He was all the husband again, stuffing gold pieces into her purse. "You're going down to the four boat? I'll take you down. And wire me when you get there, Martie, so I won't worry. And tell Sally I wish her luck, I'll certainly be glad to hear the news." They were at the doorway; he put his arm about her. "You DO love me, Mart?"
"Oh, Wallie——!" The tender moment, following upon her hour of lonely agony, was almost too much. "We—we didn't think—this would be the end of our happy time, did we?" she stammered. And as they kissed again, both faces were wet with tears.
Sally met her; a Sally ample of figure and wonderful in complexion. All the roses of spring were in Sally's smiling face; she laughed and rejoiced at their meeting with a certain quality of ease and poise for which Martie was puzzled to account, but which was new to quiet, conventional Sally. Sally was in the serene mood that immediately precedes motherhood; all the complex elements of her life were temporarily lapped in a joyous peace. Of Martie's hidden agony she suspected nothing.
She took Martie to the tiny house by the river; the plates and spoons and pillow-slips looked strange to Martie, and for every one of them Sally had an amused history. Martie felt, with a little twinge of pain, that she would have liked a handsomer home for Sally, would have liked a more imposing husband than the tired, dirty, boyish-looking Joe, would have liked the first Monroe baby to come to a prettier layette than these plain little slips and flannels; but Sally saw everything rose-coloured. They had almost no money, she told Martie, with a happy laugh. Already Sally, who had been brought up in entire ignorance of the value of money, was watching the pennies. Never had there been economy like this in Pa's house!