"I make Sam get the coffee mornings, and I do the _déjeuner_; then an old woman comes in to clean us up and cook dinner, if we don't go out. Sam is rather given to the student cafes." Mrs. Reddon moved dexterously within the confined limits of the closet kitchen and continued to describe her household. "You see we pay only thirty dollars a month for this place, and I cover the housekeeping bills with another thirty or a little more." "Heavens! How can you do it?" Milly gasped. Their pension was over that amount apiece. "It's cheaper than anything at home, and lots more fun!" Presently Sam Reddon came whistling upstairs. He stopped in histrionic surprise at sight of Milly. "Not really, Milady! How did you find your way?" "By accident." "Ma," he sang out to his wife, "you aren't going to try one of your historic stews on Mrs. Bragdon--our one fashionable visitor of the season? Don't you think we had better make an occasion of this and adjourn to Foyot's?" "No," his wife replied firmly, "you've had too many 'occasions' this month. One of my _déjeuners_ won't hurt Mrs. Bragdon or you either." "Well," he submitted dolefully, "she can't drink that red ink you mistakenly bought for wine, my dear.... I'll just fetch a bottle of something drinkable." "Hurry then! _Déjeuner_ is quite ready." "You see," she observed placidly as Reddon departed, "he takes every excuse to escape his work and make a holiday. It wasn't altogether _you_, my dear!" "It's so human!" "It's so--Sam." They had a very jolly luncheon, and afterwards, the old servant having arrived to take charge of the apartment and Elsie, the two women accompanied Reddon down the hill as far as the Sorbonne, where Marion was attending a course of lectures. Milly gathered that the little woman, in spite of her housekeeping, the one child on the spot, and another coming, had many lively interests and saw far more of Paris, which she loved, than Milly and her husband did. Both the Reddons lived carelessly, but lived hard every minute, taking all their chances, good and bad, of the minutes to come. It was a useful philosophy, but not one that Milly wholly admired. Late that afternoon Milly met her husband in a frame of mind much more serene than it was before she saw the Reddons, and told him her momentous news. He seemed more pleased and less disturbed by it than she had supposed possible. A few days later he got the proof-sheets of Reinhard's novel from the trunk, where they had been lying neglected, and worked diligently on the foolish sketches required by the text to illustrate the hero and heroine in their "tense" moments. He finished the job before they left Paris in March, which was his male way of acknowledging the new obligation that was on its way. Milly thought there might be something in Marion Reddon's ideas about men, after all. VI THE CHILD