Nina threw her arms about my neck. Norman pounded me on the back, the little lassie Marie kissed me shyly, and Guiseppe hobbled in from the kitchen to complete the welcome. While they were still storming me with questions, Norman went back to his work. He had a large sheet of drawing paper thumbtacked to the table and was sketching an advertisement for a new brand of pickles. When the rest of them disappeared to kill the fatted calf, he put a hand on my shoulder and looked me over carefully. "Been on the rocks?" he said. I had not realized that it showed. I nodded assent. He laid on a dash of crimson alongside some glaring green. "Isn’t it fierce?" he said. "They wouldn’t hang this sort of thing in the Louvre but it’s what makes the public buy." He squinted at it ruefully—"This love business is beyond me. Who would think that I could stumble on Nina where I did? You know that song of Euripides. ’This Cyprian Is a thousand, thousand things She brings more joy than any God, She brings More woe. Oh may it be An hour of mercy when She looks at me.’ I’d given the whole matter up in disgust—and it was solved for me.—Say. I need to work in a little raw blue here. Green pickles, red pepper, blue—oh yes—a blue label on the bottle. Sweet! isn’t it? "You know sometimes I think we are all wrong trying to join brains. You wouldn’t call Nina exactly my intellectual equal, but I don’t know any chap married to a college graduate who’s got anything on me. I’ll put up Marie against any highbrow offspring." He pulled out the tacks and set his sketch up on the mantel-piece and walked across the room to get the effect. He jerked his head, gestured with his hand and his lips moved as though he were arguing with it. He pinned it down again and began putting in the lettering. "Of course," he took up the thread of his thoughts, "there are people who say that it isn’t marriage at all, that I’ve just legalized my mistress. But I’ve seen a lot of people striving, breaking their necks, for something they’d call finer, more spiritual—and getting nothing at all. I know I’m happier than most. I’m satisfied with _my_ luck. That’s the point. I can’t call it anything but luck—By the way. There’s a pile of letters for you." And so I dipped back in the rut. In the Tombs I sought out new duties, tried to lose myself—forget the mess I had made of things—in work. Nina and Norman stood beside me in those days with fine sweet loyalty. They asked no questions, but seemed to know what was wrong. Always I felt myself in the midst of a conspiracy of cheer. It was during these dreary months that I first began to like children. Marie’s prattle, after the gloom and weariness of the Tombs, was bright indeed.