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 day she went on thus cheerfully and with every evidence of content.

David did not understand how she could; but he did not speak to her about it. He wondered over it by himself as he lived with her and watched her.

It would have been easy to understand if he could consider it a merely temporary period with her while she was waiting for a child; but she was not awaiting a child. The greatest part of David's wonder about her was that she did not want a child soon.

He had never discussed children with her before their marriage, as he had done with Alice when he and she were engaged and when Alice and he had agreed that they wanted four children and they would want the first child in their first year. He had simply assumed that, if any girl would want a child, Fidelia surely would; but she did not. "Not now, David!" she appealed to him, when he spoke of it to her. "Oh, I want a baby but—not yet, David."

The time, he thought, surely should be the woman's affair; yet she surprised him. He was certain that it was no physical fear which constrained her; he could not think of her physically afraid and what a perfect body she had for motherhood!

He felt, very vaguely at first and then not more definitely but more strongly, the existence of a reason which she would not confide to him; but it did not disturb his happiness with her when they locked their door upon themselves alone and left the world far, far away. It was as when he followed her into the magic valley of the Titans which made him, with her, a god responsible to no one.