had a right to be mad at me yesterday--why isn't she mad
to-day?" Edith reasoned.

Eleanor was quick to feel the contempt. "I don't care for Edith," she
told Maurice, who looked surprised.

"She's only a child," he said.

Edith seemed especially a child now to Maurice, since he had embarked on
his job at Mercer. Not only was she unimportant to him, but, in spite of
his mortification at that scene on the road, his Saturday-night returns
to his wife were blowing the fires of his love into such a glory of
devotion, that Edith was practically nonexistent! His one thought was to
take Eleanor to Mercer. He wanted her all to himself! Also, he had a
vague purpose of being on his dignity with a lot of those Mercer people:
Eleanor's aunt, just back from Europe; Brown and Hastings--cubs! But
below this was the inarticulate feeling that, away from the Houghtons,
especially away from Edith, he might forget his impulse to use--for a
second time--that dreadful word "silly."

So, as the 20th of October approached--the day when they were to go back
to town--he felt a distinct relief in getting away from Green Hill. The
relief was general. Edith felt it, which was very unlike Edith, who had
always sniffled (in private) at Maurice's departure! And her father and
mother felt it:

"Eleanor's mind," Henry Houghton said, "is exactly like a drum--sound
comes out of emptiness!"

"But Maurice seems to like the sound," Mrs. Houghton reminded him; "and
she loves him."

"She wants to monopolize him," her husband said; "I don't call that
love; I call it jealousy. It must be uncomfortable to be jealous," he
ruminated; "but the really serious thing about it is that it will bore
any man to death. Point that out to her, Mary! Tell her that jealousy
is self-love, plus the consciousness of your own inferiority to the
person of whom you are jealous. And it has the same effect on love that
water has on fire. My definition ought to be in a dictionary!" he added,
complacently.

"What sweet jobs you do arrange for me!" she said; "and as for your
definition, I can give you a better one--and briefer: 'Jealousy is Human
Natur'! But I don't believe Eleanor's jealous, Henry; she's only
conscious, poor girl! of Maurice's youth. But there is something I _am_
going to tell her...."

She told her the day before the bridal couple (Edith still reveled in
the phrase!) started for Mercer. "Come out into the orchard," Mary
Houghton called upstairs to Eleanor, "