Logically, of course, the situation wasn't essentially changed. It
couldn't be a part of their daily married routine that he should think
he'd lost her and come through perils to the rescue. When the storm had
blown over and they'd come back to the house--still more, when after
another few weeks they'd gone back to town, he'd still have a world of
his own to withdraw into, a business of his own to absorb him, and she,
with no world at all except the one he was the principal inhabitant of,
would be left outside. But you couldn't have expected her to think of
that while she held him, quivering, in her arms.




BOOK TWO

Love and the World




CHAPTER I

THE PRINCESS CINDERELLA


When the society editor of "America's foremost newspaper," as in its
trademark it proclaims itself to be, announced that the Rodney Aldriches
had taken the Allison McCreas' house, furnished, for a year, beginning
in October, she spoke of it as an ideal arrangement. As everybody knew,
it was an ideal house for a young married couple, and it was equally