another egg there?"

"Only one," he said, thickly, and handed it to her.

"Come on in the house," Edith commanded; "I suppose," she said,
resignedly, "Eleanor is playing on the piano!" (Edith, as her adoration
of Eleanor lessened, was frankly bored by her music.)

"All right," Maurice said, and followed her.

Edith asked no questions; Maurice's "word" on the road had sobered her
too much for talk. "He's mad about something," she thought; "but I never
heard Maurice say--_that_!" She didn't quite like to repeat what he had
said, though Johnny had confessed to saying "part of it." "I don't
believe he ever did," Edith thought; "he's putting on airs! But for
Maurice to say _all_ of it!--that was wrong," said Edith, gravely.

They went out of the henhouse together in silence. Maurice was saying to
himself, "I might not be able to get a job in New York... I'll fight."
Yet certain traditional decencies, slowly emerging from the welter of
his rage and terror, made him add, "If it was mine, I'd have to give her
something... But it isn't. I'll fight."

He was so absorbed that before he knew it he had followed Edith to the
studio, where, in the twilight. Mr. and Mrs. Houghton were sitting on
the sofa together, hand in hand, and Eleanor was at the piano singing,
softly, old songs that her hosts loved.

"If," said Henry Houghton, listening, "heaven is any better than this, I
shall consider it needless extravagance on the part of the
Almighty,"--and he held his wife's hand against his lips. Maurice, at
the door, turned away and would have gone upstairs, but Mr. Houghton
called out: "Sit down, man! If _I_ had the luck to have a wife who could
sing, I'd keep her at it! Sit down!" Eleanor's voice, lovely and noble
and serene, went on:

"To add to golden numbers, golden numbers!
0 sweet content! O sweet, O sweet content!"

Maurice sat down; it was as if, after beating against crashing seas with
a cargo of shame and fear, he had turned suddenly into a still harbor:
the faintly lighted studio, the stillness of the summer evening, the
lovely voice--the peace and dignity and safety of it all gave him a
strange sense of unreality... Then, suddenly, he heard them all laughing
and telling Eleanor they were sorry for her, to have such an
unappreciative husband!--and he realized that the fatigue of terror had
made him fall asleep. Later, when he came to the supper table, he was
still dazed. He said he had a headache, and could not eat; i