see you're jealous, he'll
make it worth your while! You've got a rip in the back seam of your
waist. No man ever keeps on lovin' a jealous woman; he just pretends to,
to keep the peace."

Of course this was as unintelligible to Eleanor as it is to all women
of her type of mind. So, instead of considering Maurice's enjoyment of
society, she committed the absurdity of urging him to enjoy what she
enjoyed--a solitude of two. To herself she explained his desire to see
other people, by saying it was because they had no children. "When we
have a child, he won't want to be with those boys and girls! Oh, why
don't we have a baby?" Her longing for children was like physical
hunger. But only Mrs. O'Brien understood it. When Eleanor went, in her
faithful way, two or three times a week, to sing to little sickly Don
(and pet the boarding and rather pining Bingo), Mrs. O'Brien, listening
to the little songs, pretty and silly, would draw a puckery hand over
her eyes: "She'd ought to have a dozen of her own! If that boy don't
treat her good, I'll iron off every button he's got!"

When Eleanor (hoping for a baby) worried lest Maurice's hopes, too, were
disappointed, her gentleness to him was passionate and beseeching; but
sometimes, watching his attention to other people, the gentleness grew
rigid in an accusation that, because they hadn't a child, he was
"getting tired of her"! Whenever she said this foolish thing, there
would come, afterward, a rain of repentant tears. But repentance cannot
always change the result of foolish words--and the result is so often
out of proportion to the words! As Maurice had said that day in their
meadow, of Professor Bradley and the banana skin--a very little thing
"can throw the switches," in human life!

It was the "little thing" of a lead pencil, in keeping the accounts of
their endless games of solitaire, that threw the switches now, for
Maurice Curtis.... He happened to produce a very soft pencil, which he
had borrowed, he said, "from a darned pretty woman he was showing a
house to," and had forgotten to return to her.

Eleanor said it seemed to her bad taste to talk of a strange woman that
way: "If she's a lady she wouldn't want a man she didn't know to speak
so--so lightly of her."

"I have yet to meet one of your sex who objects to being called pretty,"
Maurice said, dryly.

To which Eleanor replied that she preferred a hard lead pencil,
anyhow,--but _her_ wishes seemed to be of no impor