"I think poetry is like religion, we must get it back into our lives, as a working principle, before it can count with us again. Both have grown so stiff with tradition and Sunday usage that we must work them into the very stuff of our lives to make them real." "Yes, that is just the case, Mrs. Paxton," the poet agreed. "There is an outcry against the modern, radical poet, but it is because the dear Philistine forgets that Shelley's message and work were as advanced in his time as ours are to-day." "You will find Mrs. Paxton an omniverous reader of poetry," said Christiansen, "a reader with the appreciation of a poet." Jerry moved on, irritated in some subtle way at what he named Christiansen's showman manner of exhibiting Jane's good taste. Couldn't the Englishman find out that she had some ideas without Christiansen's help? He, her own husband, had never heard her speak of poetry. How did Christiansen know so much of her interests? The more he thought of it, the more it annoyed him. Christiansen's manner with Jane implied a life-long intimacy. What, in point of fact, did he, Jerry, know about Jane? He had never asked any questions about her people or her past, and she had vouchsafed no information. How did he know when or how she had met this man, what he had been to her? In the haste of their mad marriage, it had not mattered about her past. He intended that she should have only a future with him. He smiled grimly at that. It looked now, as if he might have only a future with Jane! But after a year and a half of marriage, what did he know about her? About her thoughts, her interests, even her habits? Where did she go on these daily, three-hour absences. Did she meet Christiansen then? He thrust the idea out of his mind to find it tapping for admission again. What kind of egotist and fool had he been, not to learn to know this woman with whom he lived? There was not a person in the room who did not know her as well as he did. Bobs knew her better. He went over to the table, where she presided. "You look as if you'd rather eat me, than amuse me," she remarked. "Bobs, would you consider Jane an intellectual woman?" he inquired abruptly. "Intellectual? Let me see. She is the best-read woman I know. She's a shark on modern poetry; she has a sound acquaintance with the principles of art; she's seen all the pictures and statuary in New York, and has ideas about them; she has looked into the labour question for women. I might not call her intellectual, but I'd call her up-to-the-minute in modern thought." "Good Lord!" said Jerry. "Oh, you don't know the first living thing about Jane. The baby knows more about her." "You needn't rub it in." "She's the biggest person in this room, is Jane." "What started you on this Jane worship, Bobs?" "Something happened to me that knocked the very foundations out from under my life for a while," she answered him directly. "I would have killed myself if it had not been for Jane."