He snapped his fingers at me, with an air of assured authority. "Come on, Ponto," he commanded. I followed him with murder in my heart, my toe-nails clicking on the parquet floor, my tail wagging with slow servility. He led the way upstairs to my wife's bedroom. He tapped on the door. "Come in," Germaine called. "And here's Ponto!" I padded across the room to the chaise longue and lay down beside her. I gave her silk-clad leg a poke with my nose. She smelled lovely. "Thank you, Ponto," she said courteously. I rested my head on my paws and looked at Winnie. He absent-mindedly pulled a cigar out of his pocket, bit off the tip and lighted it, after spitting the shreds of tobacco in the general direction of the fireplace. I could feel Germaine go tense. "I'm so glad you decided not to go to Hartford after all," she remarked quietly. "It's much nicer for you here. Myrtle and I can take care of you and see that you have a good rest. Poor darling, you must need one." Winnie blew a heavy puff of smoke toward her bed-canopy. I could tell by the way he answered her that he was feeling his way. "Yeah," he agreed. "I might as well get a sample of this far-famed suburban home-life you read about." She jumped up and put her arms around his neck. "It's not so bad, is it, Winnie?" she asked gently. "You know--I suppose it's silly to tell such things--but last night I dreamed we were going to have a baby." "Good Lord, Jimmie!" he drawled. "I hope not. You know as well as I do that we aren't the kind of people who have kids. If you think there's any danger of it, there's a doctor I know in New York who'll put a good stop to it." Germaine's hand fluttered helplessly at her breast and her face went white and peaked. A sharp whiff of the acrid sense of human anger and fear came from her body. I rose and eyed Winnie steadily. I was careful not to growl. "Why, I thought--" she began. "The other night, I mean, it was all so--What's the matter? What has changed?" He gave a sort of neighing laugh. "Oh nuts, Jimmie! We aren't the type. Say it's spring or what-have-you? Just for that are you going to go through hell just to have a little animal that will go 'Aah-Aah-Aah' at you?" Germaine stood up. "Yes," she said. "I am. If that's the way these things happen, that's what I want. If it doesn't happen I never want to see you again so long as I live. But if it does, it will be _my_ business, not yours. I want this baby. You loved me the other night. You needed me. We needed each other. I can't throw that away, like a--like a dead cigar butt." He thrust his cigar into the corner of his mouth, a la Churchill. "So that's the way it is, is it?" he demanded. "Okay, but how am I expected to know that it wasn't Jerry Rutherford--" "Oh!" Germaine looked at him in utter, white-lipped silence. "You know that can't be true." After a minute she spoke to him quite gently.