But now heigho for Venture and the New Life--the life of Art! Milly still thought vaguely that according to Mrs. Lamereux it would mean meeting a lot of interesting people, endless clever talk over delightful meals in queer little French restaurants or in picturesque and fascinating studios. "Art" was the next thing to money or fashion. If one couldn't be awfully rich or a "social leader," the best thing was to be artistic and distinguished, which brought you into contact with all sorts of people, among them "the fashionables," of course. She meant that her husband should be a successful painter, not a mere illustrator. Of the real nature of Art and the artist's life Milly had no better conception than when she first fell in love with Jack Bragdon. She knew nothing of the artist's despairs and triumphs, his tireless labor to grasp the unseen, his rare and exalted joys, his strange valuation of life,--in short the blind, unconscious purpose of Art in the terrestrial scheme of things. Nor perhaps did John Bragdon at twenty-eight. The crust of _bourgeois_ standards is so thick in American life that it takes a rare and powerful nature to break through, and Bragdon had not yet begun to knock his way.... Milly's idea of Art, like most women's, was Decoration and Excitement. When successful, it made money and noise in the world, and brought social rewards, naturally. She hadn't married Jack for that, or for any reason except because of his own adorable personality, as she told him frequently. But now that she was married she meant to make the most of the Gift. Jack was to be a Creator, and she aspired to be embodied somehow in the creation and share its profits. At last they were launched: their marriage was really just beginning.... She snuggled closer to her husband under the common rug and murmured in his sleepy ear,-- "Isn't it great, Jack?" "What?" (Drowsily.) "Europe! Everything!... That we're really here on the steamer!" "Um!" "And you're going to be a great painter--" "Perhaps." (Dubiously.) "What shall you do first?" "Don't know--find a cab." "Silly!... Don't make fun of me.... Kiss me!... Do you mind, dear, going down into the cabin and looking for my hot-water bottle," etc. Bragdon recovered first from the Atlantic languor, and in the course of his rambles about the ship discovered an acquaintance in the second cabin,--a young instructor in architecture at a technical school, who with his wife and small child were also on their way to Paris for the winter. He brought Milly to see the Reddons where they were established behind a ventilator on the rear deck. Milly thought they seemed forlorn and pitied them. Mrs. Reddon was a little pale New Englander, apparently as fragile as a china cup, and in her arms was a mussy and peevish child. She confided to Milly that she expected another child, and Milly, whose one ever present terror was the fear of becoming inconveniently a mother, was quite horrified.