But he would n't quit. He 'd be as big as the biggest of them. He, too, would have his pictures in the papers, not gaunt and bitter as most of them seemed, but pleasant, dignified, literary. And his picture would look like an author's, with its well-marked features, its masculine little mustache, its intellectual glasses. And he, too, would be interviewed. And he, too, would sign contracts involving great sums of money. And there would be gossip about him, too, in the papers, where in Florida he was spending the winter vacation, what he was doing in summer. He would n't quit. Had n't they all said at school and college he was cut out to be a writer? Had n't he gone to Europe for six months? And, what was more, had n't he the money his father, the hardware man, had left him? Had n't he his home? He could stick it out. His home! His wife! If instead of these few trees, this lawn, the outlook of the quiet sound, if instead of here he lived somewhere in the welter of affairs, wouldn't he be better? Somewhere things changed, where one did not have to go three quarters of an hour in a train to the theater. Down town in New York. Only trees and grass and water and sky here. Nothing to write about. And his wife, Berenice--oh, she was a sweet girl, a nice girl, but--hadn't he perhaps made a mistake? She was so good and wholesome! Too much? Would n't it have been better to be married to--to an actress, or a sculptress, or--or something. Some one who could feel things; who would n't smile, and be nice. Berenice was all right, but-- And his mother. She was a nice, darling person, but--she did n't just understand. She was just a mother, like anybody's mother: If she could feel the great complex things! But she was just loving, and everything he did was right. Berenice, and his mother ... the trees, the water ... essential barrenness of life ... nothing to write about ... so unfair. II