back entry
and telephoned Johnny Bennett: "Come over, lazybones, and take some
exercise!"

John came, with leaps and bounds, so to speak, and Maurice said,
grumpily:

"What do you lug Johnny in for?"

So, during the rest of her visit (with John Bennett as Maurice's
chaperon!) Eleanor merely ached with dislike of Edith; but, even so, she
had the small relief of not having to say to herself: "Is he seeing Mrs.
Dale, now? ... Did he go to her house yesterday?" Of course, as soon as
she went back to Mercer those silent questions began again; and her
audible question nagged Maurice whenever he was in the house: "Did you
go to the theater last night? ... Yes? _Did you go alone?_ ... Will you
be home to-night to dinner? ... No? _Where are you going?_"

Maurice, answering with bored patience, thought, with tender amusement,
of Edith's advice, "Tell Eleanor." How little she knew!

He did not see Edith very often that next winter, "which is just as
well," he thought. But his analysis stopped there; he did not ask
himself why it was just as well. She made flying visits to Mercer, for
shopping or luncheons, so he had glimpses of her, and whenever he saw
her he was conscious of a little wistful change in her, for she was shy
with him--_Edith_, shy!--and much gentler. When they discussed the
Eternities or the ball game, she never pounded his arm with an energetic
and dissenting fist, nor was there ever the faintest suggestion of the
sexless "rough-house" of their old jokes! As for coming to town, she
explained that she was too busy; she had taken the burden of
housekeeping from her mother, and she was doing a good deal of hard
reading preparatory to a course of technical training in domestic
science, to which she was looking forward when she could find time for
it. But whenever she did come to Mercer, she did her duty by rushing in
to see Eleanor! Eleanor's criticisms of her, when she rushed out again,
always made Maurice silently, but deeply, irritated. The criticisms
lessened in the fall, because Eleanor had the pitiful preoccupation of
watching poor Don O'Brien fade out of the world; and when he had gone
she had to push her own misery aside while his grandmother's heart broke
into the meager tears of age upon her "Miss Eleanor's" breast. But,
besides that, she did not have the opportunity to criticize Edith, for
the Houghtons went abroad.

So the rest of that year went dully by. To Eleanor, it was a time of
spasmodic effo