At first the yoke proved less heavy than he had expected. While he was at work Laura Lou had her mother's companionship. During their brief days alone his wife's tenderness had begun to frighten him, not its ardour but its submissiveness. He had not imagined that one human life could be so swiftly and completely absorbed into another. It was like a blood transfusion: body and soul, he seemed to have taken her into himself; whenever he returned, after an absence of a few hours, only her lovely ghost awaited him, and his presence had to warm her back to life. Now it was different. Her love was quieted by the return to the daily routine in familiar surroundings. She, who had formerly done so little to help her mother, was now eager to share in the household labours; Vance guessed that she was trying to learn how to make a home for him. Already she sternly defended his working hours, and had once or twice reproved Mrs. Tracy for asking him to bring up the coal or clear out the roof gutter. Luckily, if clumsy he was willing, and had no objection to undertaking the tasks which had been Upton's, if only the women would let him alone while he wrote. This was not very difficult, since he worked in the afternoon and after they had gone to bed; and the first weeks at Paul's Landing passed peacefully.

One day Upton came over. He had grown broader and stronger, and his new job had given him an air of importance which at first amused and then irritated Vance, to whom he was still the shifty boy of three years ago. Upton did not appear much more pleased with Laura Lou's marriage than his mother, nor more impressed by Vance's literary credentials. While the women were in the kitchen he followed Vance back to the dining room, where the latter had been given a corner for his desk and papers, shut the door solemnly, and asked: What about Bunty Hayes? Vance laughed, and said he guessed Bunty Hayes wasn't going to bother them much, and anyhow he'd had three weeks now to stir things up, and they hadn't heard from him.

"Oh, but you will," Upton said, a little apprehensively. "He was in California when Laura Lou and you went off, and I don't believe he knows anything yet. His job in New York ended after Thanksgiving, and the firm that employs him sent him West to look over some winter and spring routes. I guess he'll be back any day," he added.