"That lets me out, then," he laughed. "I got some nice effects out there in the fog; it's a soaking white blanket down on the beach." "You didn't see Bobs?" "No; is she out? You two been gabbling all morning?" "Yes, we've had a fine gabble," laughed Christiansen. "I'll put on a mackintosh and go in search of your Miss Bobs." Jerry went to the door with him, and Jane stole off to her room. She did not want to talk to Jerry just then; she wanted to think over all the things she and Martin had said to each other during those friendly hours. Out on the muddy road, Christiansen strode along at a great pace. He wanted to be alone, to think out his chaotic thoughts. He had come to the Paxtons' with no idea at all that Jane was to have a child, and the knowledge had come to him with a shock. He had long since admitted to himself that he was more interested in Jane's development, in her search for expression, than he had been in anything for years. He liked the quality of her mind; he thought her possessed of that rare gift, a sense of style. She had absorbed the masters, yet was no pupil of any of them. He was convinced that she had a future, and it was of this he was thinking when he exclaimed at the announcement of her marriage, "Child, child, what have you done?" The baby would be another fetter, and she must be free to work out her artistic salvation. It might be years before that freedom came. Would her gift grow richer, or die for want of use? "How can we expect to manage it?" he growled into the fog. "What?" said Bobs, at his elbow. "Wraith, where did you drop from?" he demanded. "Out of the fog to answer your question. What was it?" "How can a woman be an artist and a human being at the same time?" She peered at him before she replied. "She can't. She can only be them in relays. Artist awhile, human awhile. Living takes too much from her. Loving, wiving, mothering are too devouring. Men manage their part of it, but women cannot; that is my decision." "You think she must choose between them?" "No, that is too big a price to pay for either." "How, then?" "She must have both some of the time, neither all the time." "But isn't that increasingly difficult with a man to consider, possibly a child or two?" "Difficult? Do you think there is anything more difficult than being a woman to-day? I don't," she answered bitterly. "The most difficult thing I know is being a man." "Why do we bother with it at all, when just a little plop out there in the fog would end it?" "Would it, though?" "Don't you think souls are ever allowed to rest? Do they plunge us into some new form the minute we leave the old?" "It's the doubt about it that is salutary." "If you go out, you're a coward. If you stay on, it's because you're afraid to go out," she cried. "Even so. Therefore you come to grips with life, and prove yourself a good soldier." "Like Jane," Bobs said. "Isn't she fine?" "She is a very rare human."