ze the fact that what made him love her then, made him impatient
with her now. This seemed to her irrational; and so, of course, it
was!--just as the tide is irrational, or the turning of the earth on its
axis is irrational. Nature has nothing to do with reason. So, in its
deep and beautiful and animal beginnings, Love, too, is irrational. It
has to ascend to Reason! But Eleanor did not know these things. All she
knew was that Maurice _hurt_ her, a dozen times a day.

She was brooding over this one Sunday afternoon in late September, when,
at the open window of her bedroom, with Bingo snoozing in her lap, she
listened to Edith, down in the garden: "How about a jug of dahlias on
the table?"

And Maurice: "Bully! Say, Edith, why couldn't we have a yellow scheme
for the grub? Orange cup, and that sort of fussy business you make out
of cheese and the yolks of eggs? And yellow cakes?"

"Splendid! I'll mix up some perfectly stunning little sponge cakes,
'Lemon Queens.' Yellow as anything!"

This was all to get ready for a tea under the silver poplar, which was
dropping yellow leaves down on the green table, and the mossy brick
path, and the chairs for the company. The Mortons were coming, and there
would be, Eleanor told herself, wearily, the usual shrieking over flat
jokes,--Edith's jokes, mostly. Her dislike of Edith was a burning ache
below her breastbone. "Maurice has her, so he doesn't want me," she
thought; then suddenly she got up and hurried downstairs. "I'll fix the
table!" she said, peremptorily.

"It's all done," Edith said; "doesn't it look pretty? Oh, Eleanor, let
me put a dahlia behind your ear! You'll look like a Spanish lady!" She
put the gorgeous flower into the soft disorder of Eleanor's dark hair,
avoiding Bingo's angry objections, and said, with open admiration,
"Eleanor, you _are_ handsome! I adore dahlias!" she announced; "those
quilly ones, red on the outside and yellow inside! There are some
stunning ones on Maple Street, where I saw that Dale woman. Wonder if
she'd sell some roots?"

The color flew into Maurice's face. "Did you get your bicycle mended?"
he said.

Instantly Edith forgot the dahlias, and plunged into bicycle
technicalities, ending with the query, "Why don't you squeeze out some
money, and buy one of those cheap little automobiles, Maurice, you mean
old thing!"

"Can't afford it," Maurice said.

But Eleanor was puzzled. There had been a hurried note in Maurice's
voice when he