For in Shadyville, the young married people early abdicated in favor of those still younger, those still seeking mates. Society was, in fact, merely a means of finding one's mate, so primitive had the little town remained; companionship between men and women, save as an opportunity for the eternal quest, was unknown. Wives and mothers sat placidly, or wearily, against the walls at dances, watching the game of man and maid, and slaked their thirst for entertainment, for stimulating comradeship, at the afternoon teas and bridge parties of their own sex. Now and then a reading club or a study class was organized, a naïve effort toward an understanding of things which Shadyville vaguely perceived to be of importance beyond its boundaries; and always the class or club died of insufficient nourishment. Within thirty miles of a large town, the life of Shadyville remained uncorrupted--and unimproved; a healthy, simple, joyous affair of the love-quest in youth; a healthy, simple, and usually contented, matter of home-making and child-rearing later. Sheila, having stepped over into the second stage with her marriage, was not supposed to feel any longings which her domestic existence could not satisfy; and feeling them, in defiance of Shadyville's standards and traditions, she could but suppress and starve them. "Let me go down to the office every day and help you," she suggested to Ted finally, "I used to help you--before we were married." But Ted, whose limited ambitions had realized themselves and whose work had now settled into a comfortable routine for which he was more than capable, evinced no enthusiasm for the project. She had helped him; he had never forgotten nor disparaged that. But he did not need or want her at the Star office now, and he did need and want her in his home. "You have enough to do as it is--with Eric and the house," he said. "But, Ted, I _haven't_ enough to do," she insisted. "There's nothing for me really to do in the house. I overlook everything, but that doesn't occupy all my time. And with Eric at school--don't you see, my dear, that it's something to do I need? Don't you see how--how restless I am?" "We ought to have more children!" he exclaimed wistfully. "Yes," she agreed, "yes, we ought to have more children. But if they do not come--?" And she stared before her, her hands lying empty and listless in her lap. "If they do not come--?" she repeated presently. And now she turned her brooding eyes to his face and a purpose gathered and concentrated in them. "I wonder if you could understand--" she began. But he cut into the sentence: "I must hurry back to the office. I take too much time for lunch. Don't get discontented, little girl. I'll take you down to Louisville for the horse show next week. We'll have a bully spree. That's what you need." And he went off whistling blithely, sure that he had solved the problem of Sheila's "moods"--as he always called any symptom of depression in her.