t I want!" she said; "just to be alone with you. I wish we
could live on a desert island!..."

Down in the studio, Mr. Houghton, smoking up to the fire limit a cigar
grudgingly permitted by his wife ("It's your eighth to-day," she
reproached him), Henry Houghton, listening to his Mary's account of the
talk in the orchard, told her what he thought of her: "May you be
forgiven! Your intentions are doubtless excellent, but your truthfulness
leaves something to be desired: 'Years won't make any difference'? Mary!
Mary!"

But she defended herself: "I mean, 'years' can't kill love--the highest
love--the love that grows out of, _and then outgrows_, the senses! The
body may be just an old glove--shabby, maybe; but if the hand inside
the glove is alive, what real difference does the shabbiness make? If
Eleanor's mind doesn't get rheumatic, _and if she will forget
herself_!--they'll be all right. But if she thinks of herself--" Mary
Houghton sighed; her husband ended her sentence for her:

"She'll upset the whole kettle of fish?"

"What I'm afraid of," she said, with a troubled look, "is that you are
right:--she's inclined to be jealous, I saw her frown when he was
playing checkers with Edith. I wanted to tell her, but didn't dare to,
that jealousy is as amusing to people who don't feel it, as it is
undignified in people who do."

"My darling, you are a brute," said Mr. Houghton; "I have long suspected
it, _in re_ tobacco. As for Eleanor, _I_ would never have such cruel
thoughts! _I_ belong to the gentler sex. I would merely refer her to Mr.
F.'s aunt."

CHAPTER VIII

They reached Mercer in the rainy October dusk. It was cold and raw, and
a bleak wind blew up the river, which, with its shifting film of oil,
bent like a brown arm about the grimy, noisy town. The old hotel, with
its Doric columns grimed with years of smoky river fogs, was dark, and
smelled of soot; and the manners of the waiters and chambermaids would
have set Eleanor's teeth on edge, except that she was so absorbed in the
thrill of being back under the roof which had sheltered them in those
first days of bliss.

"Do you _remember_?" she said, significantly.

Maurice, looking after suitcases and hand bags, said, absently,
"Remember what?" She told him "what" and he said: "Yes. Where do you
want this trunk put, Eleanor?"

She sighed; to sentimentalize and receive no response in kind, is like
sitting down on a chair which isn't there. After dinne