k I will
follow him,--and _watch_.... Was he with her last night when he said he
had gone to the theater? ... Is he lying to me when he says he has to go
away on business, and is he really with her? It's the _lying_ I can't
bear! If only he would not lie to me!... Does she call him 'Maurice'?
Perhaps she called him 'darling'?" The thought of an intimacy like
_that_, was oil on the vehement flame!

"You look dreadfully, Eleanor," Mrs. Newbolt told her once, her pale,
protruding eyes full of real anxiety. "I'd go and see a doctor, if I
were you."

"I'm well enough," Eleanor said, listlessly.

"At your age," said her aunt, "you never can tell _what's goin' on
inside_! Here's a piece of candy for Bingo--he's too fat. My dear father
used to say that a man's soul and his gizzard could hold a lot of
secrets. It's the same with women. So look out for your gizzard. Here,
Bingo!"

Eleanor was silent. She had just come from Mrs. O'Brien's, where she had
given the slowly failing Donny a happy hour, and she was tired. Mrs.
Newbolt found her alone in the garden, sitting under the shimmering
silver poplar. The lilies were just coming into bloom, and on the
age-blackened iron trellis of the veranda the wistaria had flung its
purple scarves among the thin fringes of its new leaves. The green tea
table was bare: "I'd give you a cup of tea," Eleanor said, "but Maurice
is going out to dinner, so I told Mary not to keep the fire up, just for
me."

"Maurice goin' out to dinner! Why, it's your weddin' day! Eleanor, if I
have one virtue, it's candor: Maurice oughtn't to be out to dinner so
much--and on your anniversary, too! Of course, it's just what I expected
when you married him; but that's done, and I'm not one to keep throwin'
it up at you. If you want to hold him, _now_, you've got to keep your
figger, and set a good table. Yes, and leave the door open! Edith has a
figger. She entertains him, just the way I used to entertain your dear
uncle--by talkin'. I'd have Bingo put away, if I were you; he's too old
to be comfortable. You got to make him _want_ to sit by the fire and
knit! But here you are, sittin' by yourself, lookin' like a dead fish. A
man don't like a dead fish--unless it's cooked! I used to broil shad for
your dear uncle." For an instant she had no words to express that
culinary perfection by which she had kept the deceased Mr. Newbolt's
stomach faithful to her. "Yes, you've got to be entertainin', or else
he'll go up t