ime-table, had been
exhausted.

It was Edith who broke into reality--Maurice had taken the reins, and
they were jogging slowly along. "Maurice," she said, "how is Jacky?" His
start was so perceptible that she said, "You don't mind my asking?"

"I don't mind anything you could say to me, Edith. I'm grateful to you
for asking."

"I want to help you about him," she said.

He put out his left hand and gripped hers. Then he said: "I'm going to
do my best for the little fellow. I've botched my own life, Edith;--of
course you know that? But he shan't botch his, if I can help it!"

"I think you can help it," Edith said.

His heart contracted; yet it was what he had expected. The idealism of
an absolutely pure woman. "Well," he said, heavily, "of course I've got
to do what I honestly think is the light thing."

"Are you sure," she said, "that you know what the right thing is? You
mustn't make a mistake."

"I may be said to have made my share," he told her, dryly.

She did not answer that; she said, passionately, "Maurice, I'd give
anything in the world if I could help you!"

"Don't talk that way," he commanded, harshly. "I'm human! So please
don't be kind to me, Edith; I can't stand it."

Instantly her heart pounded in her throat: "He _cares_. Oh, they can't
separate us. But they'll try to." ... The rest of the drive was rather
silent. On the porch at Green Hill the two older friends were waiting to
welcome him. ("Don't let's leave them alone," Henry Houghton had said,
with a worried look; which made his wife, in spite of her own
uneasiness, smile, "Oh, Henry, you are an innocent creature!") After
dinner Mrs. Houghton, determinedly commonplace, came to the rescue of
what threatened to be a somewhat conscious occasion, by talking books
and music. Her husband may have been "innocent," but he did his part by
shoving a cigar box toward the "boy," and saying, "How's business? We
must talk Weston's offer over," he said.

Maurice nodded, but got up and went to the piano; "Tough on you,
Skeezics," he said once, glancing at Edith.

"Oh, I don't mind it, _much_," she said, drolly.

So the evening trudged along in secure stupidity. Yet it was a straining
stupidity, and there was an inaudible sigh of relief from everybody
when, at last, Mary Houghton said, "Come, good people! It's time to go
to bed."

"Yes, turn in, Maurice," said his host; "you look tired." Then he got
on his feet, and said good night with an alacrity wh