Finally it was agreed that Tarrant should give him time to write another novel, and that the New Hour should meanwhile continue his slender salary. Soon afterward the first instalment of the royalties on Instead fell due. It was slightly above Dreck and Saltzer’s expectations, and Vance was able to pay back half of the money he had borrowed, and to clear off the interest and his other debts. He had thought long and painfully over the future after his last talk with his grandmother, and had finally concluded that he would leave to Laura Lou the decision as to her future and his. He refrained from telling her of Mrs. Scrimser’s offer, and of his resolve not to share the money she hoped to make on her lecturing tour. To speak of this might raise hopes that he would have to disappoint without being able to make his wife see why. The alternatives he put before her were the offer of a home with his family, or the possibility of her joining Mrs. Tracy and Upton in California. It went hard with him to suggest the latter, for it meant the avowal of his failure to make her happy or comfortable. But he said to himself, with a gambler’s shrug: “If she chooses to go to her mother it will mean she wants to be free—and if she does, I ought to let her.” He still did not understand why he resented this idea instead of welcoming it, or how much there was of memory, and how much of mere pride, in his dogged determination to keep her with him as long as she was willing.
Hardly less distasteful was the idea of going back to his family. The offer had been renewed by Mr. Weston, who, though his ill-advised speculations had checked his career in real estate, was ready to take his son and his son’s wife into his house, and find a job for Vance (he thought there would still be a chance on the Free Speaker). But Vance’s few hours with his grandmother had put Euphoria before him in merciless perspective. In every allusion, every turn of her speech, every image that came to her, he saw how far he had travelled from Mapledale Avenue. With cruel precision he evoked the mental atmosphere of the place; the slangy dingy days at the Free Speaker, the family evenings about the pink-throated gramophone; and he knew he could not face it. Yet he was determined not to let Laura Lou suspect his reluctance. His business was to do his best for her, and perhaps, according to her lights, his best was this. He put the case for Mapledale Avenue first, without betraying his own feelings; he even exaggerated the advantages of his father’s offer. But, to his surprise, Laura Lou rejected it. She was never good at giving reasons or analysing her instinctive reluctances, and he suspected that the fear of hurting his feelings benumbed her. But she seemed to feel that he ought to be near New York, and not have to go back to newspaper work, at least not at Euphoria. … “I know you’d be doing it just for me,” she tried to explain.
“Well, we’ve got to live,” he rejoined, not unkindly; and she said, in her disjointed way: “If we were somewhere where I could cook … and nobody interfere. …” If they had a home of their own! He knew that was what she meant. But he said, still more gently: “See here, Laura Lou, till I can give you a place where nobody’ll interfere, how about going out to your mother and Upton? You know that climate—”
She flushed, this time with pleasure; then her eyes grew dusky, as they did when she was troubled. “But I guess California’d be a good way farther from your work than Euphoria even; and we’d have more expenses. …” She looked at him with a little practical smile. Oh, Lord—how was he to tell her? Yes, he said, he supposed he’d have to stick on here in New York, on his job; what he meant was—“For me to go out alone?” she completed, and added immediately: “Oh, Vanny, it isn’t what you want, is it? You’re not trying to tell me it would be easier for you if I went back to Mother? If that’s it, I’d rather you. …” She ended desperately: “If we could only find some little place where I could do the cooking …” and as he kissed away her tears he swore he would find a way, if she was really sure she didn’t want to leave him. … “I’d mend for you too, better than I have,” she sobbed out, rapturous and repentant; and the search for the little place began. It was anxious and arduous; the friendly settlement manager was consulted, but could suggest nothing within Vance’s means. Other enquiries failed; and at last it was Rebecca Stram who, oddly enough, came to the rescue. She had an old Jewish mother who lived out on the fringes of the Bronx, and a brother in real estate who picked up unlikely bargains, and waited; and among them they found a shaky bungalow containing some rattan chairs, a divan and a kitchen range. It stood alone on a bit of bedraggled farmland, in the remains of an orchard, with a fragment of woodland screening it from flathouses and chimneys. Not far off, the outskirts of the metropolis whirled and rattled and smoked; but in this sylvan hollow nature still worked her untroubled miracles, and Vance had to walk through deep ruts, and past a duck pond and an ancient pump, to pick up turnpike and trolley. Behind the house the land rose in a wooded ridge, and beyond that was real country, still untouched; it was heaven to dwellers at Mrs. Hubbard’s, and for the first weeks the mere sense of peace and independence gave Vance
