If she could only get close to Paul she was sure that all would be well. She made herself hope, with a brave belittling of the tangle that baffled her, that perhaps just one long, serious talk with Paul would be all that was needed. If she could just make Paul see what she saw, he could tell her how to set to work to remedy things. Paul was so clever. Paul was always so kind--when he saw! She began watching for a favorable opportunity for this long, serious talk, and as day after day fled past with only a glimpse of Paul desperately in a hurry in the morning and desperately tired at night, she was aware that her idea of the shape their life was taking had not exaggerated the extent of the broad flood of trivialities that separated them. Although the light laugh of her girlhood was rarer than before her marriage, life had not proved it to be the result of mere animal spirits. She still saw a great deal to laugh at, though sometimes it was tremulous laughter, carrying her to the edge of tears. And she often laughed to herself during these days at the absurd incongruity of what her heart was swelling to utter and the occasions on which she would have to speak. 'Stashie was away, tending her aunt who was ill, away for an indefinite period, for Patsy's steady wages quite sufficed to keep his cousin at home to care for his grandmother. Lydia sometimes feared the satisfaction she took in Patsy's exemplary career was tinctured with vainglory for her own share in it, but, if so, she was punished for it now, since it was his very prosperity that took away from her the only steady domestic help she had ever been able to keep. She had now only a cook, a slatternly negress, with a gift for frying chicken and making beaten biscuit, and a total incapacity to conceive of any other activity as possible for her. Lydia had telephoned to the two employment agencies in Endbury and had been informed, by no means for the first time, that the supply of girls willing to work in the suburbs had entirely given out. For the time being there was simply not one to be had, so for the next few days Lydia, as well as Paul, was more than usually occupied; but her fixed intention to "talk things over with him" was not shaken. And yet--day after day went by with the routine unvaried--there was no time in the morning; in the evening Paul was too tired, and on Sundays there was always "Company," it being practically their only time for daylight entertainment. Often Paul brought a business associate home for dinner; his family or hers came in; there were always callers in the afternoon; and they were usually invited out to supper or had guests themselves. It was the busiest day of the week.