“That’s as it should be.  And as I knew it would be, too.  You’ve done a noble thing, Eleanor.”

“No!  No!  Don’t say that!  It was nothing.  Because I—­love him so.  And he never cared for that woman.  She has no brains, he says.  But what I want is to get the boy for him.  Oh, he must have the boy!” Then she told Mrs. Houghton how Maurice went to see the child.  “He goes once a week, though he says she’s jealous if he makes too many suggestions; so he has to be very careful or she would get angry.  But he has managed it so I have seen him; last summer he took him to the circus, and I sat near them.  And twice he’s had him in the park and I spoke to him.  And on Christmas he took him to the movies; I sat beside him.  And I buttoned his coat when he went out!” Her eyes were rapt.

Mary Houghton, listening, said to herself, “Now what will Henry Houghton say about the ‘explosion’?  I shall rub it into him when I get home!” ...  “Eleanor, you are magnificent!” she said.

“But how could I do anything else—­if I loved Maurice?” Eleanor said.  “Oh, I do want him to have Jacky!  We must make a man of him.  It would be wicked to let Lily ruin him!  And I want to give him music lessons.  He has Maurice’s blue eyes.”

It was infinitely pathetic, this woman with gray hair, telling of her young husband’s joy in his little son—­who was not hers.  And Eleanor’s sense of the paramount importance of the child gave Mrs. Houghton a new and real respect for her.  Aloud, she agreed heartily with the statement that Jacky must be saved from Lily.

“She isn’t bad,” Eleanor explained; “but she’s just like an animal, Maurice says.  Devoted to Jacky, but no more idea of right and wrong than—­than Bingo!” She was so happy that she laughed, and looked almost young—­but at that moment the street door opened, closed, and in the hall some one else laughed.  Instantly Eleanor looked old.  “It’s Edith,” she said, coldly.

It was—­with Maurice in tow.  “I haled him forth from his office,” Edith said; “and we went to see your aunt, Eleanor.  She’s a lamb!”

“Tea?” Eleanor said, briefly.

“Yes, indeed!” Edith said.  She looked very pretty—­cheeks glowing and brown hair flying about the rounded brim of a brown fur toque.

Maurice, keeping an eye on her, was gently kind to his wife.  “Head better, Nelly?” Then, having secured his tea, he drew Edith over to the window and they went on with some discussion which had paused as they entered the house.

Eleanor, watching them, and making another cup of tea for Mrs. Houghton, spilled the boiling water on the tray and on her own hand.

“My dear!” said Mrs. Houghton, “you have scalded yourself!”

And, indeed, Eleanor whitened with the pain of her smarting, puffing fingers.  But she said, her eyes fixed on Edith, “What are they talking about?” Mrs. Houghton’s look of surprise made her add:  “Edith seems so interested.  I just wondered....”  She had caught a phrase or two: