y pursue your
shining,' that you fail to see that, in this dark world of men, there
has to be compromise. If this impossible situation should arise--which
God forbid!--if the explosion should come, and Eleanor should leave him,
of course Maurice wouldn't marry the woman! I should consider him a
candidate for an insane asylum if he thought of such a thing. He would
simply do what he could for the boy, and that would be the end of it."

"Oh," she said, "don't you see? It would be the _beginning_ of it!--The
beginning of an evil influence in the world; a bad little boy, growing
into a bad man--and his own father permitting it! But," she ended, with
a sudden uplifted look, "the 'situation,' as you call it, won't arise;
Eleanor will prevent it! Eleanor will save Jacky."

CHAPTER XXVII

Walking home that night, with Mrs. Houghton's "tell Eleanor" ringing in
his ears, Maurice imagined a "confession," and he, too, used Mr.
Houghton's words, "'there will be an explosion!' But I'll gamble on it;
I'll tell her. I promised Mrs. Houghton I would," Then, very anxiously,
he tried to decide how he should do it; "I must choose just the right
moment," he thought.

When, three months later, the moment came, he hardly recognized it. He
had been playing squash and had given his knee a nasty wrench; the
ensuing synovitis meant an irritable fortnight of sitting at home near
the telephone, with his leg up, fussing about office work. And when he
was not fussing he would look at Eleanor and say to himself, "How can I
tell her?" Then he would think of his boy developing into a little
joyous liar--and thief! The five cents that purchased the jew's-harp,
instead of going into the missionary box, was intensely annoying to him.
"But the lying is the worst. I can stand anything but lying!" the poor
lying father thought. It was then that Eleanor caught his eye, a
half-scared, appraising, entreating eye--and stood still, looking down
at him.

"Maurice, you want something? What is it?"

"Oh, Nelly!" he said; "I want--" And the thing tumbled from his lips in
six words: "I want you to forgive me."

Eleanor put her hand to her throat; then she said, "I know, Maurice."

Silence tingled between them. Maurice said, "You _know_?"

She nodded. He was too stunned to ask how she knew; he only said, "I've
been a hound."

Instantly, as though some locked and bolted door had been forced, her
heart was open to him. "Maurice! I can bear it--if only