t dinner party, wished Johnny had seen
her, all dressed up. Then she pondered the possibilities of her
allowance: If she was "going out," oughtn't she to have a real evening
dress? But this daring thought faded very soon, for there didn't seem to
be any dinner parties ahead. Mrs. Newbolt's supper table was, as Maurice
said, sarcastically, the extent of the "Curtises' social whirl"--a fact
which did not trouble him in the least! He had his own social whirl. He
had made a man-circle for himself; some of the fellows in the office
were his sort, he told Edith, and it was evident that their bachelor
habits appealed to him, for he dined out frequently; and when he did, he
was careful not to tell Eleanor where he was going, because once or
twice, when he had told her, she had called up the club or house on
the telephone about midnight to inquire if "Mr. Curtis had started
home?" ... "I was worried about you, it was so late," she defended
herself against his irritated mortification. He used to report these stag
parties to Edith, telling her some of the stories he had heard; it
didn't occur to him to tell any stories to Eleanor, because, as Henry
Houghton had once said, Maurice and his wife didn't "have the same taste
in jokes." When Edith chuckled over this or that witticism (or frowned
at any opinion contrary to Maurice's opinion!) Eleanor sat in unsmiling
silence. It was about this time Maurice fell into the way of saying "we"
to Edith: "We" will have tea in the garden; "we" will put in a lot of
bulbs on each side of the brick path; "we" will go down to the square
and hear the election returns. Occasionally he remembered to say, "Why
don't you come along, Eleanor?"

"No, thank you," she said; and sometimes, to herself, she added, "He
keeps me out." The jealous woman always says this, never realizing the
deeper truth, which is that she keeps herself out! Maurice did not
notice how, all that winter, Eleanor was keeping herself out. She was
steadily retreating into some inner solitude of her own. No one noticed
it, except Mrs. O'Brien--and perhaps fat, elderly, snarling Bingo, who
must sometimes, when his small pink tongue lapped her cheek, have tasted
tears. By another year, Eleanor's mind had so utterly diverged from
Maurice's that not even his remorse (which he had grown used to, as one
grows used to some encysted thing) could achieve for them any unity of
living. She bored him, and he hurt her; she loved him and tried to
ple