shook her head. She was too wounded to speak. For the rest of
the poor little picnic, with its gathering up of fragments and burning
paper napkins--the conversation was labored and conscious.

On the trolley going home, Edith was the only one who tried to talk;
Eleanor, holding Bingo in her lap, was dumb; and Johnny--hunting about
for an excuse to "get away from the whole blamed outfit!" only said
"M-m" now and then. But Maurice said nothing at all. After all, what can
a man say when his wife has made a fool of herself?

"Even Lily would have had more sense!" he thought.

CHAPTER XVIII

That dismal festivity of the meadow marked the time when Maurice began
to live in his own house only from a sense of duty ... and because Edith
was there! A fact which Eleanor's aunt recognized almost as soon as
Eleanor did; so, with her usual candor, Mrs. Newbolt took occasion to
point things out to her niece. She had bidden Eleanor come to dinner,
and Eleanor had said she would--"if Maurice happened to be going out."

"Better come when he's _not_ going out, so he can be at home and amuse
Edith!" said Mrs. Newbolt. "Eleanor, my dear father used to say that
women were puffect fools, because they never could realize that if they
left the door _open_, a cat would put on his slippers and sit by the
fire and knit; if they locked it, he'd climb up the chimney, but what
he'd feel free to prowl on the roof!"

Eleanor preferred to "lock the door"; and certainly during that next
winter Edith's gay interest in every topic under heaven was a roof on
which Maurice prowled whenever he could! Sometimes he stayed at home in
the evening, just to talk to her! When he did, those "brains" which
Eleanor resented, made him indifferent to many badly cooked
dinners--during which Eleanor sat at the table and saw his enjoyment,
and felt that dislike of their "boarder," which had become acute the day
of the picnic, hardening into something like hatred. She wondered how he
endured the girl's chatter? Sometimes she hinted as much, but Edith
never knew she was being criticized! She was too generous to recognize
the significance of what she called (to herself) Eleanor's grouch, and
Maurice's delight in such unselfconsciousness helped to keep her
ignorant, for he held his tongue--with prodigious effort!--even when
Eleanor hit Edith over his shoulder. If he defended her, he told
himself, the fat _would_ be in the fire! So, as no one pointed out to
Edith w