stupid. She's proved _that_ by marrying
Maurice! Oh, what a fool!" Then she tried to console him: "But one of
the happiest marriages I ever knew, was between a man of thirty and a
much older woman."

"But not between a boy of nineteen and a much older woman! The trouble
is not her age but his youth. Why didn't she adopt him?... I bet the
aunt's cussing, too."

"Probably. Well, we've got to think what to do," Mary Houghton said.

"Do? What do you mean? Get a divorce for him?"

"He's just married; he doesn't want a divorce yet," she said, simply;
and her husband laughed, in spite of his consternation.

"Oh, lord, I wish I was asleep! I've always been afraid he'd go
high-diddle-diddling off with some shady girl;--but I swear, that would
have been better than marrying his grandmother! Mary, what I can't
understand, is the woman. He's a child, almost; and vanity at having a
woman of forty fall in love with him explains him. And, besides, Maurice
is no Eurydice; music would lead him into hell, not out of it. It's the
other fool that puzzles me."

His wife sighed; "If her mind keeps young, it won't matter so much about
her body."

"My dear," he said, dryly, "human critters are human critters. In ten
years it will be an impossible situation."

But again she contradicted him: "No! Unhappiness is possible; but _not_
inevitable!"

"Dear Goose, may a simple man ask how it is to be avoided?"

"By unselfishness," she said; "no marriage ever went on the rocks where
both 'human critters' were unselfish! But I hope this poor, foolish
woman's mind will keep young. If it doesn't, well, Maurice will just
have to be tactful. If he is, it may not be so _very_ bad," she said,
with determined optimism.

"Kit, when a man has to be 'tactful' with his wife, God help him!--or
a woman with her husband," he added in a sudden tender afterthought.
"We've never been 'tactful' with each other, Mary?" She smiled, and put
her cheek against his shoulder. "'Tactfulness' between a husband and
wife," said Henry Houghton, "is confession that their marriage is a
failure. You may tell 'em so, from me."

"You may tell them yourself!" she retorted. "What are they going to live
on?" she pondered "Can his allowance be increased?"

"It can't. You know his father's will. He won't get his money until he's
twenty-five."

"He'll have to go to work," she said; "which means not going back to
college, I suppose?"

"Yes," he said, grimly; "who would suppo