"Sometimes at his hang-out, as he calls it. I've had supper there once or twice with Molly Bascom. You needn't be alarmed. We talk science, and he abuses doctors. He trundled off to Paris or Vienna with that queer machine of his, and got some encouragement over there. You should hear him talk about Europe! Now he's crazy over some new bugs he's found. He may not make good from Jack's point of view. But you see that doesn't prevent me from liking him. He has a great time thinking all by himself. He'd starve himself to death if he had to, to do what he's after. That's the real thing. I offered him money once to help him out." "Venetia, not that!" "Yes. I said, 'See here, my friend, I've more of this than I want,' which was a lie. But I was willing to sell a horse or two. 'Help yourself,' I said, 'and when I want it I'll ask you.' I put a cardcase I had with me on the table, stuffed of course. He took it up, took out what was in it, handed the money back, and dropped the case in a drawer. 'None of that,' he said. 'I don't take money from a woman.' I was glad afterward that he didn't take it, though I don't know why--he looked specially hard up. I suppose I might have done it a nicer way, but I thought he would understand and treat me like a little girl, as he always has.... Well, here comes Jack at last." She gave the architect a hand, which he shook with mock impressiveness. "How do, Jackie! I've been teaching your domestic angel a thing or two." "I guess you can't corrupt her." It was evident that she and Jackson understood each other very well. CHAPTER XVI Season shifted into season, and meanwhile an impalpable veil of difference was falling between the architect and his wife. The peaceful days of winter, early spring, and late autumn were precious to the woman--days when the silent processes of nature touched her senses softly, and she could live undisturbed by calls and dinners with their array of familiar faces. Then she heard the birds in the trees behind the house, and listened to the rustling of the tall poplars beneath her windows, and watched the vivid colors of the lake. This harmony of nature, this great enveloping organism of peace, she was beginning to feel, was all that life held for her,--nature and her children, whose wants she fulfilled. Yet ever in the background, not far away, there hung in the horizon that black cloud above the city, which could not wholly be shut out in any revery of country peace. For with it she and her children were linked by all the cords of modern life.