Martha in Paris by Margery Sharp Page A

if she gave birth at Richmond during the summer vacation there was the shot-gun angle, while if she gave birth in the rue de Vaugirard Angèle would undoubtedly make a nuisance of herself and possibly want to be godmother. Martha for once directed all her attention to a purely, physically, personal problem; and in the end wrote a second longish letter home.
    D EAR A UNT D OLORES [wrote Martha]:
    I have the opportunity to spend the summer holiday with that very good sketching-party at that village I told you about. It is such a very good opportunity I feel I ought not to miss it. If you tell Mr. Joyce I am sure he will agree. The cost this time will be about sixty pounds, but saving my keep at home, also the fare. Of course I shall be very sorry not to see you all, but it really is a very good opportunity .
    Yours affec .,
    M ARTHA
    Martha read it through and thought again—now looking even further into the future; and after a full half-hour’s consideration added the postscript that was to bring her kind Aunt Dolores so much joy.
    P.S. , scrawled Martha, after that I am coming home for good, because —
    Here she stopped to consider afresh—though this time for no longer than it took the ink to dry.
    â€” because I am missing you so much , finished Martha, I don’t want another year in Paris .
    2
    â€œDarling, read this!” cried Dolores, over the Richmond breakfast-table. “It’s from Martha! And—oh, Harry!—she’s coming home!”
    Harry Gibson, in the act of cracking an egg, paused.
    â€œShe always was coming home,” he pointed out.
    â€œFor the summer—but now she means for good! ” cried Dolores joyfully. “For the summer she wants to join that sketching-party again; she means afterwards. Instead of another year in Paris! Isn’t it wonderful?”
    Now in the act of buttering a roll, Harry paused again; his brow rather darkened. If Dolores was the most important person in his life, so that anything that made her happy made him happy too, Mr. Joyce was the second most important; and what would Mr. Joyce say, to this casual sabotaging of his two-year plan? Friendship apart, Mr. Joyce was the Gibsons’ economic mainstay; Harry had every reason in the world not to risk biting, even vicariously, the hand that fed him …
    â€œHarry! Don’t you want Martha back?” cried Dolores reproachfully.
    â€œOf course I want her back. I’m very fond of Martha,” said Harry loyally. “But old Joyce meant her to stay a couple of years, and I don’t know how he’ll like it.”
    â€œYou know as well as I do she can twist him round her finger. We just don’t have to interfere!” countered Dolores.
    The rider was unnecesary. In any direct encounter between Martha and her patron Harry would as soon have thought of interfering as he’d have thought of interfering between the horns of locked buffaloes; also his money would be on Martha.
    â€œShe’ll make it all right with Mr. Joyce, I’m sure she will!” promised Dolores confidently. “Oh, Harry, do be pleased!”
    â€œIf you’re pleased, that’s enough for me,” said loyal Harry.
    3
    All through that day, however—in the intervals of selling one musquash coat, undertaking repairs to another and the remodelling of a fox-fur stole—Harry Gibson continued to feel uneasy. He didn’t know exactly why; it was after all Martha’s funeral, and as has been said he had every confidence in her ability to handle it. But at luncheon as again at dinner he found it hard to match his wife’s happy smiles with any appropriately joyful expression. Nor was it only the thought of Mr. Joyce’s possible displeasure that bothered him; there was something more.
    Late that night—in fact in the small hours of the morning—the big double bed creaked as he turned and woke. Beside him three blankets and a quilt padded