e, too. You've done a
noble thing, Eleanor."

"No! No! Don't say that! It was nothing. Because I--love him so. And he
never cared for that woman. She has no brains, he says. But what I want
is to get the boy for him. Oh, he must have the boy!" Then she told Mrs.
Houghton how Maurice went to see the child. "He goes once a week, though
he says she's jealous if he makes too many suggestions; so he has to be
very careful or she would get angry. But he has managed it so I have
seen him; last summer he took him to the circus, and I sat near them.
And twice he's had him in the park and I spoke to him. And on Christmas
he took him to the movies; I sat beside him. And I buttoned his coat
when he went out!" Her eyes were rapt.

Mary Houghton, listening, said to herself, "_Now_ what will Henry
Houghton say about the 'explosion'? I shall rub it into him when I get
home!" ... "Eleanor, you are magnificent!" she said.

"But how could I do anything else--if I loved Maurice?" Eleanor said.
"Oh, I do want him to have Jacky! We must make a man of him. It would be
wicked to let Lily ruin him! And I want to give him music lessons. He
has Maurice's blue eyes."

It was infinitely pathetic, this woman with gray hair, telling of her
young husband's joy in his little son--who was not hers. And Eleanor's
sense of the paramount importance of the child gave Mrs. Houghton a new
and real respect for her. Aloud, she agreed heartily with the statement
that Jacky must be saved from Lily.

"She isn't bad," Eleanor explained; "but she's just like an animal,
Maurice says. Devoted to Jacky, but no more idea of right and wrong
than--than Bingo!" She was so happy that she laughed, and looked almost
young--but at that moment the street door opened, closed, and in the
hall some one else laughed. Instantly Eleanor looked old. "It's Edith,"
she said, coldly.

It was--with Maurice in tow. "I haled him forth from his office," Edith
said; "and we went to see your aunt, Eleanor. She's a lamb!"

"Tea?" Eleanor said, briefly.

"Yes, indeed!" Edith said. She looked very pretty--cheeks glowing and
brown hair flying about the rounded brim of a brown fur toque.

Maurice, keeping an eye on her, was gently kind to his wife. "Head
better, Nelly?" Then, having secured his tea, he drew Edith over to the
window and they went on with some discussion which had paused as they
entered the house.

Eleanor, watching them, and making another cup of tea for Mrs. Houghton,