_ don't know! I can't help you much. But you mustn't appear in
this for a single minute. Hayes will see her, and buy her off."

Maurice shook his head, despairingly: "Uncle Henry, she's common; but
she's not vicious. She's a nice little thing. I know Lily! I'll see her.
_I'll have to!_ I'll tell her I'll--I'll help her." No wonder poor Henry
Houghton feared he would lose his bet! "I know you think I'm easy meat,"
Maurice said; "but I'm not. Only," his face was anguished, "I've _got_
to be half decent."

It was after one o'clock when the two men went upstairs, though there
had been another summons over the banisters: "Maurice! Why don't you
come to bed?" When they parted at Maurice's door, Mr. Houghton struck
his ward on the shoulder and whispered, "You're more than half decent.
I'll bet on you!" and Maurice whispered back:

"You're _white_, Uncle Henry!"

He went into his room on tiptoe, but Eleanor heard him and said,
sleepily, "What on earth have you been talking about?"

"Business," Maurice told her.

"Who was your lavender-colored letter from?" Eleanor said, yawning; "I
forgot to ask you. It was awfully scented!"

There was an instant's pause; Maurice's lips were dry;--then he said:

"From a woman... About a house. (My God! I've _lied_ to her!)" he said
to himself...

Mary Houghton, reading comfortably in bed, looked up at her old husband
over her spectacles. "I've heated some cocoa, dear," she said. "Drink it
before you undress; you are worn out. What kept you downstairs until
this hour?"

"Business."

Mary Houghton smiled: "Might as well tell the truth."

"Oh, Kit, it's a horrid mess!" he groaned; "I thought that boy had got
to the top of Fool Hill when he married Eleanor! But he hadn't."

"Can't tell me, I suppose?"

"No. Mary, mayn't I have a cigar? I'm really awfully used up, and--"

"Henry! You are perfectly depraved! No; you may _not_. Drink your cocoa,
honey. And consider the stars;--they shine, even above Fool Hill. And
'messes' look mighty small beside the Pleiades!" Then she turned a page
of her novel, and added, "Poor Eleanor."

"I don't know why you say 'Poor Eleanor'!"

"Because I know that Maurice isn't sharing his 'mess' with her."

"You are uncanny!" Henry Houghton said, stirring his cocoa and looking
at her admiringly.

"No; merely intelligent. Henry, don't let him have any secrets from
Eleanor! Tell him to _tell_ her. She'll forgive him."

"She's not that kind, Mary."

"