"Mrs. Biggs."
"Oh, her!"
Anna departed to attend to her dinner and Jane went into the nursery to lay out her son's travelling outfit. He was awake and crowing lustily. Presently, as she selected or discarded small garments, Jerry came in and went to the cradle side. Small Jerry lifted his voice in greeting and displayed his entire smile.
"Hello, old man," said his father.
Baby gurgled back.
"All right for me to take him downstairs with me, Jane?" he asked.
"Of course. Take a blanket along in case it's cool down there."
She watched Jerry's deft handling of the baby as he wrapped him and tucked him into his arm. There was a mist in her eyes as he went out, and she dropped her hands in her lap, with the question as to whether she was doing the right thing. Was she being unfair to Jerry? Should she give it all up—stay where she was—let well enough be? Then she thought of Martin—of the rights to her consideration which his great offering made for him; she thought of her own rights—what it would mean to her to know a great love—to love greatly. Little Jerry's shrill cry from below brought her back. Her first impulse was right, to get away from all the things that pulled upon her—to see the horizon on all sides—to think to that line.
The piles of Baby's things were ready and she went to her own room to sit down in the dusk and decide where she should go. She did not know many places about New York, the summer places she and Jerry had considered would be too bleak and dreary now in the late winter. She thought back to the New Jersey towns she knew as a girl. There was one holiday she specially remembered, spent in Lakewood, with a maiden lady, Miss Garnett, who owned a little house and took people to board. She had never thought of it in years; the woman might be dead now, but she would try it anyway. She would like that cottage better than a hotel. She wired, asking a return wire at once.
The more she thought about the place, the more she decided that was where she would go. It was near New York and yet she could be alone there. She remembered walks and woods. She called the station and learned about trains. Then she set herself to her own packing. Once she stole out to the balcony and looked over. Jerry was singing "Ride-a-cock-horse," and little Jerry was trying to carry the tune with the strange noises he used in self-expression. They were unconscious of an intruder, so Jane slipped away again.