She spoke as if it were a sacrifice she had deliberately made for her husband....
Milly talked enthusiastically to Jack that night of the new coöperative building and urged him to look into it. "I do so want a home of my own," she said with a touch of pathos. "Mrs. Fredericks still thinks there's space to be had on one of the floors."
Bragdon looked into it, and reported that a good deal of space was to be had. He was dubious of the wisdom of the scheme, even if by a complicated arrangement of loans they could manage to buy a nominal share. But Milly was persistent and proved to him with a sudden command of figures that it would really reduce the cost of rent. She found out more details, and she gained the support of Big Brother, who generously offered to finance the undertaking for them. "It will make you feel settled," he said, "to own your own home." Jack could not see that in the end he should own much of anything unless by some surprising stroke of luck a good many thousands of dollars fell into his lap. But he felt that Milly should have a permanent place of her own, such as the slice of the new ten-story building offered, and it would be better for the child than to be wandering from rented apartment to apartment. So the plans were drawn, the agreements practically made, when he had a final misgiving.
The agreements lay on the table before him to be signed, and he had just read them over carefully. They seemed to him like a chain that, once signed, bound him to the city, to _Bunker's_ for an indefinite future. His editorial chair had been specially galling that day, perhaps, or the impulse to paint stronger than usual. He threw down the papers and exclaimed,--
"Let's quit, Milly, before it's too late!"
And he made his plea, for the last time seriously, to take their lives in their hands and like brave people walk out of the city-maze to freedom, to a simple, rational life without pretence.
"I want to cut out all this!" he cried with passion, waving his hand carelessly over the huddle of city roofs, "get into some quiet spot and paint, paint, paint! until I make 'em see that I have something to say. It's the only way to do things!"
With passionate vividness he saw the years of his youth and desire slipping away in the round of trivial "jobs" in the city; he saw the slow decay of resolves under the ever increasing demands to "make good" by earning money. And he shrank from it as from the pit.