husband told her, soberly; "there's a
boy." His wife's shocked face made him add: "I think Curtis will feel
he ought to legitimatize the youngster by marrying his mother. Maurice
is good stuff. He won't sidestep an obligation."

"I never heard of such an awful idea!" said Mrs. Morton, dismayed. "I
hope he'll do nothing of the kind! You can't correct one mistake by
making another. Don't you agree with me?" she demanded of Doctor Nelson;
who displayed, of course, entire ignorance of Mr. Curtis's affairs.

He only said, "Well, it's a rum world."

Johnny Bennett, in Buenos Aires, reading a letter from his father, said:
"Poor Eleanor!" ... Then he grew a little pale under his tan, and added
something which showed his opinion--not, perhaps, of what Maurice
_ought_ to do, but of what he would do! "I might as well make it a
three-years' contract," Johnny said, bleakly, "instead of one. Of course
there 11 be no use going back home. Eleanor's death settles _my_ hash."

Even Mrs. O'Brien, informed by kitchen leakage as to what had happened,
had something to say: "He ought to make an honest woman of the little
fellow's mother. But to think of him treating Miss Eleanor that way!"

And now, in the studio, the Houghtons also were saying what Maurice
ought--and ought not!--to do: "I'm afraid he's thinking of marrying
her," Mr. Houghton had said; and his wife had said, quickly, "I hope
so--for the sake of his child!"

"But, Mary," he protested, "look at it from the woman's point of view;
this 'Lily' would be wretched if she had to live Maurice's kind of
life!"

Edith, standing with her back to her father and mother, staring down
into the ashes of the empty fireplace, said, over her shoulder, "Maurice
may marry somebody who will help him with Jacky--just as Eleanor would
have done, if she had lived."

"My dear," her father said, quickly, "he has had enough of your sex to
last his lifetime! As a mere matter of taste, I think Maurice won't
marry anybody."

"I don't see why, just because he--did wrong ten years ago," Edith
said, "he has got to sidestep happiness for the rest of his life! But as
for marrying that Mrs. Dale, it would be a cat-and-dog life."

"Edith," said her father, "when you agree with me I am filled with
admiration for your intelligence! Your sex has, generally, mere
intuition--a nice, divine thing, and useful in its way. But indifferent
to logic. My sex has judgment; so when you, a female, display judgment,
I