all the time! So long as she thinks she
has the upper hand, she'll be generous; she doesn't mind his being fond
of me, you know. But she'd fight tooth and nail if she thought I had any
_rights_! You see that, don't you?"

"I see it!" Edith said.

"Yet from a merely material point of view," said Mrs. Houghton, "in
spite of 'controversies,' legitimacy would give Jacky advantages,
which--oh, Maurice, don't you see?--_your son_ has a right to!"

But her husband said, quickly, "Mary, living with a quarreling father
and mother is spiritual illegitimacy; and the disadvantages of that
would be worse than the material handicap of being a--a fatherless
child."

His daughter flashed a passionately grateful look at him.

Maurice, still speaking to Edith's mother, said: "That's the way I
looked at it, Mrs. Houghton. So it seemed to me that I could do more for
him if I didn't marry Lily."

Mary Houghton was silent; it was very necessary to consider the stars.

"I put myself out of it," Maurice said. "I just said, 'If it's best for
Jacky, I'll ask her to marry me,' My honest opinion was that it would be
bad for him."

Edith struck two chords--and sat down on the piano stool, swallowing
hard.

"You don't agree with me, I'm afraid, Mrs. Houghton?" he said,
anxiously.

"My dear boy," she said, "I am sure you are doing what you believe to be
right. But it does not seem right to me."

He flinched, but he was not shaken; "It isn't going to be easy, whatever
I do. I want to educate him, and see him constantly, and influence him
as much as possible. And Lily will be less jealous of me, in her own
house, than she would be in mine."

Edith got up and came and sat on the arm of the sofa by her father. "I
can see," she said, "how much easier it would be for Maurice to do the
hard thing."

Maurice looked at her with deep tenderness. "You _are_ a satisfying
person!" he said.

Henry Houghton took his girl's hand, and held it in a grip that hurt
her. "Maurice is right," he said; "things are _not_ going to be easy for
him. For, though he won't marry Jacky's mother, he won't, I think, marry
anybody else."

"Why won't he?" said Edith.

"There is no _moral_ reason why he shouldn't," her father conceded; "it
is a question of taste; one might perhaps call it a question of
honor"--Maurice whitened, but Henry Houghton went on, calmly, "Maurice
will, of necessity, be so involved with this woman--and God knows what
annoyances she may mak