Edith's first winter in Mercer went pretty well; she was not fussy about
what she had to eat; "I can always stoke on bread and butter," she said,
cheerfully; and she was patient with the aging Bingo's yapping
jealousies; "The smaller a dog is, the more jealous he is!" she said,
with good-humored contempt; and she didn't mind Eleanor's
speechlessness. "_I_ talk!" Edith said. But Maurice?... "I love him next
to father and mother," Edith thought; but, all the same, she didn't know
what to make of Maurice! He had very little to say to her--which made
her feel annoyingly young, and made him seem so old and stern that
sometimes she could hardly realize that he was the Maurice of the
henhouse, and the camp, and the squabbles. Instead, he was the Maurice
of that night on the river, the "Sir Walter Raleigh" Maurice! Once in a
while she was quite shy with him. "He's awfully handsome," she thought,
and her eyes dreamed. "What a clod Johnny is, compared to him!" ... As
for Eleanor, Edith, being as unobservant as most sixteen-year-old girls,
saw only the lovely dark eyes and the beautiful brow under the ripple of
soft black hair, Eleanor's sterile silences did not trouble her, and she
never knew that the traces of tears meant a helpless consciousness that
dinner had been a failure. The fact was, she never noticed Eleanor's
looks! She merely thought Maurice's wife was old, and didn't "get much
fun out of life--she just plays on the piano!" Edith thought. Pain of
mind or body was, to Edith--as probably it ought to be to
Youth--unintelligible; so she had no sympathy. In fact, being sixteen,
she had still the hard heart of a child.
It may have been the remembrance of Sir Walter Raleigh that made her,
one night, burst into reminiscent questions:
"Maurice! Do you remember the time that boat upset, and that girl--all
painted, you know--flopped around in the water?"
Maurice said, briefly, why, yes; he believed he remembered.
"I remember that girl, too," Eleanor said; "Maurice told me about her."
"Well, what do you suppose?" Edith said; "I saw her to-day."
Maurice, pushing back his chair, got up and went into the little room
opening into the dining room, which they called the library. At his
desk, his pen in his hand, his jaw set, he sat listening--listening!
What in hell would she say next? What she said was harmless enough:
"Yes, I saw her. I was walking home, and on Maple Street who should I
see going into a house but this woman! She was lugging a flower pot, and
a baby. And,--now, isn't this funny?--she sort of stumbled at the gate,
_right by me_! And I grabbed her, and kept the child from falling; and I
said--" In the library Maurice's face was white--"I said, 'Why, _I_ saw
you once--you're Miss Dale. Your boat upset,' And she said, 'You have
the advantage of me.' Of course she isn't a lady, you know."
Eleanor smiled, and called significantly to her husband, "Edith says
your rescued friend isn't a 'lady,' Maurice!" He didn't answer, and she
added to Edith, "No; she certainly isn't a lady! Darling," she called
again; "do you suppose she's got married?"
To which he answered, "Where did I put those sheets of blotting paper,
Eleanor?"
"Oh yes, she's married," Edith said, scraping her plate; "she told me
her name was _Mrs_. Henry Dale. She couldn't seem to remember Maurice
giving her his coat, which I thought was rather funny in her, 'cause
Maurice is so handsome you'd think she'd remember him. And I said he was
'Mr. Curtis,' and she said she'd never heard the name. I got to talking
to her," ("I bet you did," Maurice thought, despairingly); "and she told
me that 'Jacky' had had the measles, and been awfully sick, but he was
all well now, and she'd taken him into Mercer to get him a cap."
("What's Lily mean by bringing the Thing into town!" Jacky's father was
saying through set teeth.) "She was perfectly bursting with pride about
him," Edith went on; "said he was 'a reg'lar rascal'! Isn't it queer
that I should meet her, after all these years?"
When Eleanor went into the library to hunt for the blotting paper, she,
too, commented on the queerness of Edith's stumbling on the lady who
wasn't a lady. "How small the world is!" said Eleanor. "Why, Maurice,
here's the paper! Right before you!"
"Oh," said Maurice, "yes; thank you." He was saying to himself, "I might
have known this kind of thing would happen!" He was consumed with
anxiety to ask Edith some questions, but of course he had to be silent.
To show even the slightest interest was impossible--and Edith
volunteered no further information, for that night Eleanor took occasion
to intimate to her that "Mrs. Dale" must not be referred to. "You can't
speak of that kind of person, you know."
"Why not?" Edith said.
"Well, she isn't--nice. She wasn't married. And Edith, it really isn't
good taste to tell a man, right to his face, that he's handsome! I don't
think any man likes flattery."
"You mean because I said Maurice was handsome? I didn't say it to his
face--he was in the library. And it isn't flattery to tell the truth. He
is! As for Mrs. Dale, she _is_ married; this little Jacky was her baby!
She said so. He had the bluest eyes! I never saw such blue eyes--except
Maurice's. 'Course she's not a lady; but I don't see what right you have
to say she isn't nice."
Eleanor, laughing, threw up despairing hands; "Edith, don't you know
_anything_?"
"I know _everything_," Edith said, affronted; "I'm sixteen. Of course I
know what you mean; but Mrs. Dale isn't--that. And," Edith ended, on
the spur of the moment, "and I'm going to see her sometime!" The under
dog always appealed to Edith Houghton, and when Eleanor left her,
appalled by her failure to instill proprieties into her, Edith was
distinctly hot. "I'm not going to see her!" she told herself. "I
wouldn't think of such a thing. But I won't listen to Eleanor abusing
her."
As for Eleanor, she confided her alarm to Maurice. "She mustn't go to
see that woman!"
His instant horrified agreement was a satisfaction to her: "Of _course_
not!"
"She won't listen to _me_," Eleanor complained; "you'll have to tell her
she mustn't."
"I will," he said, grimly.
And the very next day he did. He happened (as it seemed) to start for
his office just as Edith started for school, so they walked along
together.
"Edith," he said, the moment they were clear of his own doorway and
Eleanor's ears; "that Mrs. Dale; I'd keep away from her, if I were you."
"Goodness!" said Edith; "did you suppose I was going to fall into her
arms? Why should I have anything to do with her?"
"Eleanor said you said--"
"Oh, I just said that because Eleanor was down on her, and that made me
mad. I couldn't go and see her, if I was dying to--'cause I don't know
where she lives--unless it was that house she was going into? Do you
know, Maurice?"
"Great Scott! How should I know where she lives?"
"'Course not," said Edith.
But it was many days before Maurice's alarm quieted down sufficiently to
let him drift back into the furtive security of knowing that neither
Edith nor Eleanor could, by any possibility, get on Lily's track. "And,
besides, Lily's too good a sport to give anything away. Pretty neat in
her to 'forget' that coat! But she ought to be careful not to forget her
husband's name!--it seems to be Henry, now."