And I liked that.  Believe me—­please!  I liked that!  And I think the main reason for it was that I was falling in love, not with her husband but with the man whom you were bringing back to life.  It was that in him, that kind of ambition and that kind of life and friends, that I wanted—­oh, so hard!  I was groping about to get them—­but it’s not easy in New York.  And meanwhile we were married, and about that part of it you were right.  I was selfish, I did want him all.  I let everything go, kept everything out—­especially his business.  I was jealous of you as I was of his wife—­of everything past—­I wanted him new!

“Then my baby came, and it was a time when I did a good deal of thinking.  I—­thought out my sister.  I saw how different we were.  What she wanted I didn’t want at all.  So I set to work to change him—­and I thought I was doing it all by myself—­just as you thought you were doing it.  Each of us was working alone—­and we thought we were working in spite of each other—­against each other.  I was against you in his office, you were against me in his home.  And because you hadn’t any idea of what I was trying, you made him work for money for me—­to buy me off!  But I don’t want money—­alone, I mean!  And when he came and said he was rich, it frightened me—­I wasn’t ready—­I had no friends!  And so the money only brought back my sister’s friends in a perfect horde—­and with them her memory—­her influence—­her husband!

“Oh, can’t you understand what I mean—­and how I’m placed and what it’s like?  Can’t you believe that I want in him exactly what you want yourself?  But it hasn’t been easy!  Don’t you see?  I am only a second wife!  She’s here—­she has been—­all the time—­like a ghost—­and we never speak her name!  But if you will only work with me—­”

She stopped with a quick turn of her head.  They listened, and heard Joe’s key in the door.  In a moment he had entered the hall.

“Hello.  Who’s here?” he asked at once.

“It’s I,” said his partner, quietly, going out to meet him.  And sitting there rigid, she heard him continue in gruff low tones, “Something I’d forgotten—­a point in those Taggert specifications.  I want to clear it up tonight.”

CHAPTER XVII

What impression had she made?  How far had she overcome the heavy weight of dislike and suspicion Amy had rolled up in his mind?  As Ethel’s thoughts went rapidly back over the things Nourse had told her, again and again with excitement she felt what a help he could be if he would.  Here lay the gate to her husband’s youth.

“If only he’ll believe in me!  Shall I send for him?  No,” she decided.  “If there’s any hope, he’ll come again.”

She waited three days.  Then he telephoned, “Can I see you today at four o’clock?” She answered, “Yes, I’ll be very glad.”  And she felt a little faint with relief as she hung up the receiver.