On the way back to New York, Will and I sat hand in hand looking out at the monotonous stretch of desert-land. "I'm glad to have it over--I'm glad that's out of our life," he reiterated, pressing my hand. "It was rotten!" Suddenly he burst out laughing. He continued long and sonorously. "Do you know, girlie," he said, "do you know that with a little more fullness of figure and a pair of two-inch heels, you'd make a grand Lady Macbeth? Phew!" and he laughed again. CHAPTER IV The question of bearing children had given me many a bad hour. My husband felt that the coming of a child, at the outset of his career, would be a burden and a handicap; once he was established and could afford to maintain a home, it would be time enough, he declared. He felt that, at best, children born and reared in the theatrical profession were the victims of unnatural conditions. It was not practicable to carry a young child about the country, and, if left behind, to the care of either relatives or hired attendants, the child was robbed of its natural protection. Obviously I must make up my mind to separate from one or the other--my child or my husband--until the little one was old enough to travel. Here arose another knotty problem. Children are little human sponges; they absorb the atmosphere of their environment. A stage-child is no more immune to the vicious influences about it than to a scarlet-fever germ. Should I then be willing to expose my child to dangers of more far-reaching consequences than physical ailments, and at a time of life when character is formed? My husband and I discussed these problems at length, and finally concluded that, since the inevitable had happened, the wisest course was to make the best of it. How many children, I wonder, are conceived in the same spirit? How many births the result of accident? How few planned with the wish to bestow the best of one's flesh and spirit upon the little stranger? Can the influence of unwelcome conception upon the child itself ever be computed? May not criminal tendencies and moral delinquencies be traced to such a source? If, at the beginning, I were guilty of misdirected sentiment, I set myself to right the wrong as the weeks grew into months. I no longer chafed at separation; I lived in a kind of spiritual exaltation. My plans and dreams of the future were now transferred to the coming of my child. Will was so fortunate as to secure another engagement almost immediately. His success led to the opportunity he most desired, and in the early autumn he played his first engagement as leading man of a New York production. The Company opened out of town; in theatrical parlance this is what they call "trying it on the dog."