he shingling.

"But, Maurice, why didn't you wake me?" Edith protested, when she
discovered what he had done. "I'd have gone out, too!"

"I liked doing it by myself," Maurice evaded.

And for five minutes Edith was sulky again. "He puts on airs, 'cause
he's married! Well, I don't care. He can shingle the whole roof by
himself if he wants to! I don't like married men, anyhow."

The married man had, indeed, wanted to be by himself--to put the nails
in his mouth, and to sit on the cold, slippery shingles in the gray
September morning, and to tap-tap-tap--and think, and think.

But he didn't like his thoughts very well....

He thought how he had rushed upstairs, terrified lest Eleanor was
fainting or had a "stomachache," or something--and found her sitting up
in bed, her cheeks red and glazed with tears, her round, full chin
quivering. He thought how he had tried to make out what she was driving
at about Edith, and the chicken coop, and the ridgepole!

"You told Edith I was scared!"

Maurice's bewilderment was full of stumbling questions: "Told Edith?
When? What?"

And as she said "when" and "what," ending with, "You said I am scared!"
Maurice could only say, blankly. "But my darling, you _are_!"

"You may think I am a fool, but to tell Edith so--"

"But Great Scott! I didn't!"

"I won't have you talking me over with Edith; she's a _child_! It was
just what you did when you danced three times with that girl who
said--Edith is as rude as she was!--and she's a _child_. How can you
like to be with a child?" Of course, it was all her fear of Youth,--but
Eleanor did not know that; she thought she was hurt at the boy's
neglect. Her face, wet with tears, was twitching, her voice--that lovely
voice!--was shrill in his astonished ears....

Maurice, on the sloping roof, in the chill September dawn, his fingers
numb on the frosty nails, stopped hammering, and leaned his chin on his
fist, and thought: "She's sick. She almost killed herself to save me; so
her nerve has all gone. That's why she talked--that way." He put a
shingle in its place, and planted a nail; "it was because she was scared
that what she did was so brave! I couldn't make her see that the more
scared she was, the braver she was. It wouldn't have been brave in that
gump, Edith, without a nerve in her body. But why is she down on Edith?
I suppose she's a nuisance to a person with a wonderful mind like
Eleanor's. Talks too much. I'll tell her to dry up when