them, anyhow. If you can't stand the intellectual strain we'll side-step
the show later and play a little--what do you call it in the
army?--pontoons?"

They strolled toward the door, Nina's arms linked in theirs, her slim
fingers interlocked on her breast.

"We are certainly going to be happy--we three--in this innocent _ménage
à trois_," she said. "I don't know what more you two men could ask
for--or I, either--or the children or Eileen. Only one thing; I think it
is perfectly horrid of Gerald not to be here."

Traversing the hall she said: "It always frightens me to be perfectly
happy--and remember all the ghastly things that _could_ happen. . . .
I'm going to take a glance at the children before I dress. . . . Austin,
did you remember your tonic?"

She looked up surprised when her husband laughed.

"I've taken my tonic and nobody's kidnapped the kids," he said. She
hesitated, then picking up her skirts she ran upstairs for one more look
at her slumbering progeny.

The two men glanced at one another; their silence was the tolerant,
amused silence of the wiser sex, posing as such for each other's
benefit; but deep under the surface stirred the tremors of the same
instinctive solicitude that had sent Nina to the nursery.

"I used to think," said Gerard, "that the more kids you had the less
anxiety per kid. The contrary is true; you're more nervous over half a