"I'm getting into the stride," she said. "_The Other Solution_ came hard. I'm so glad you liked it. I'd go stale on it. Have to lay it aside, so I've three coming out close together, now. I'm just finishing the proof of number two, _Babel_. It's about those crazy _Transatlantiques_ we played with in Paris. And the next one strikes a deeper note. I think I'll call it _The Mess of Pottage_. It's almost finished--a couple of months' polishing. I've been working on all three of these at the same time. But from now on it's one a year--regularly." The conversation rambled back and forth. It jumped from the criminal code of the Haktites to Strauss' _Electra_, and that brought them to Mrs. Van Cleave, whom Beatrice had encountered in the foyer of the Paris Opera at _Pelleas et Melisande_. Mrs. Van Cleave reminded them of a thousand things. The two years since they had seen each other fell away, the old intimacy returned. Beatrice suddenly reverted to Yetta. "Don't blame me if you muddled things up. I advised you to marry her--not to get into a metaphysical discussion with her. I'm not sure but you're the bigger fool of the two. '_De l'audace et encore de l'audace et toujours de l'audace._' They say that Danton was a successful man with the ladies." "The answer to that is," Walter said, "that you write your next novel in Oxford." "Oxford! Why, a university town is no place for audacity!" "It's the place for you," he said decisively. "To-morrow I'll rent the cottage next to mine--it's bigger. I noticed a 'To Let' sign on it this morning. It's a love of a place. And quiet! There isn't a corner of Philadelphia that's as quiet Sunday morning as Oxford is." But Beatrice refused to consider his suggestion. "I'm doing very well as I am, thank you. Having just got on my feet at last--no more entanglements for me!" But two days after the summer recess began, Walter dropped off the train in her little Norman village. "It's no use struggling, Beatrice," he said, before she had recovered from her surprise at his invasion. "You're going to write your next novel in Oxford. I've rented the larger house, and as soon as the French law allows we'll get married." "Nonsense!" she said. He came over and stood in front of her chair and talked to her in a quiet third personal tone--as if he were the family lawyer. "B., here we are, two unattached and lonely individuals of the opposite sexes. You said that morning in Paris that we were a sorry couple who had messed things up frightfully and wanted to cry. Well, we've got a bit more used to the mess, don't want to cry as much as we did--but--well, we want to live. "I was a fool to ask Yetta to marry me, and she was very wise to run away. After all, she and I were strangers. She did not understand me any more than I did her. She was in love with a very nebulous sort of a dream--which I didn't resemble at all.