What Bill wanted to do was carry his daughter down into the lobby and show her off to everybody who came in. Why not, since there wasn't another baby in San Francisco that could come within a mile of her for looks and intelligence? What he did do was sneak up to the room set aside for the nursery--they were still living in a hotel, which at this particular time was the Palace--and pull down the silken coverlets and gaze at little Mary until he was discovered and shooed away. After two months of this, Bill was beginning to feel abused. She was _his_ baby, as well as Doris'. He believed that he had a right to look at her now and then, since Doris assumed the privilege of rocking her and talking unintelligibly to her by the hour. Still, Bill was accustomed to carrying a proper sense of his limitations about with him. A year had convinced him that husbands didn't amount to much, after all; that they were frequently a real obstacle to a woman's pursuit of happiness. And since his whole soul was still fixed upon making Doris completely happy, he eliminated himself from the scene whenever he saw a certain look in the eyes of his wife, and ministered to her happiness as unobtrusively as possible. One deep hurt remained with Bill, do what he would to forget it. Doris had not been pleased about little Mary,--until she had actually arrived and won her own place in the family. That had hurt Bill terribly and made his own eagerness seem a fault which he must hide as best he could. Well, women had their own ideas of things, their own hopes and ambitions. Doris didn't seem to have had enough of the glitter of life, yet. She didn't want to have a house and settle down to real home life. Bill was beginning to feel that he did not understand her at all. Home life would be lonely, she complained; would shut her away from the things she loved best. For instance, Doris never tired of the big, beautiful dining places with the music and the soft lights, the flash of jewels and the hovering, obsequious servants. She wanted the deference that bowed and waited for largess. She loved the smiles and the nods from rich diners at other tables. She loved to have her maid telephone to the steward that he would please lay so many extra covers at the William Gordon Dale table. And would he please see that there were just a few orchids peeping out from dark-green foliage, massed very low,--that glossy green which Mrs. Dale likes so well?