asked Edith about her bicycle--an imperative changing of
the subject! She looked at him wonderingly. Why should he change the
subject? Was he annoyed at Edith's bad taste in referring to the
creature? But Edith's taste was always bad, and Maurice was not
generally so sensitive to it; not as sensitive as he ought to be! Or as
he had been in those old days when he had said that Eleanor was too
lovely to know the wickedness of the world, and he "didn't want her to"!
She was really perplexed; and when Edith rushed off to make the cakes,
and Maurice went indoors, she sat there in the garden, looking absently
out through the rusty bars of the iron gate at the distant glimmer of
the river, and wondered: "Why?"

She was still wondering even when the Mortons arrived, bringing with
them--of all people!--Doctor Nelson. (_"Gosh!"_ said Maurice.) "We're
celebrating his appointment at the hospital; he's the new
superintendent!" Mrs. Morton explained.

Eleanor said, mechanically, "So glad to see you, Doctor Nelson!" But she
was saying to herself, "_Why_ was Maurice provoked when Edith spoke of
Mrs. Dale?" When some more noisy and very young people arrived, she was
too abstracted to talk to them. She was so silent that most of them
forgot her; until Mrs. Morton, suddenly remembering her existence, tried
to be conversational:

"I suppose Mr. Curtis told you of our wild adventure on the river in
August, when we got beached and spent the afternoon on a mud flat?"

"No," Eleanor said, vaguely. But afterward, when the guests had gone,
she said to Maurice, "Why didn't you tell me about your adventure with
the Mortons?"

"He told me," Edith said, complacently.

"I forgot, I suppose," Maurice said, carelessly, and lounged off into
the house to sit down at the piano--where lie immediately "forgot" not
only the adventure on the river--but even his dismay at seeing Doctor
Nelson!--who by this time was, of course, quite certain that it was a
"rum world."

That winter--although he was not conscious of it--Maurice's
"forgetfulness" in regard to his wife became more and more marked, so it
was a year of darkening loneliness for Eleanor. She was at last on that
"desert island"--which had once seemed so desirable to her;--she had
nothing to interest her except her music (and the quality of her voice
was changing, pathetically); furthermore, Maurice rarely asked her to
sing, so the passion had gone out of what voice she had! She didn't care
for