He said that if she enjoyed it, that was all he cared about!  He didn’t tell her—­perhaps he didn’t know it himself—­that his own lack of enjoyment was due to his inarticulate consciousness that he had not belonged anywhere at that dinner table.  He was too old—­and he was too young.  The ladies talked down to him, and Brown and Hastings were polite to him.  “Damn ’em, polite!  Well,” he thought, “’course, they know that a man in my position isn’t in their class.  But—­” After a while he found himself thinking:  “Those hags Eleanor raked in had no manners.  Talked to me about my ‘exams’!  I’m glad I snubbed the old one, I don’t think Rose was too young,” he said, aloud.  “Oh, Star, you are wonderful!”

And she, letting her hair fall cloudlike over her shoulders, silently held out her arms to him.  Instantly his third bad moment vanished.

But a fourth was on its way; even as he kissed that white shoulder, he was thinking of the letter which must certainly come from Mr. Houghton in a day or two.  “What will he get off?” he asked himself; “probably old Brad and Mrs. Newbolt have fed oats to him, so he’ll kick—­but what do I care?  Not a hoot!” Thus encouraging himself, he encouraged Eleanor: 

“Don’t worry!  Uncle Henry’ll write and beg me to bring you up to Green Hill.”

The fifty-four minutes of married life had stretched into eight days, and Maurice had chewed the educating nails of worry pretty thoroughly before that “begging” letter from Henry Houghton arrived.  There was an inclosure in it from Mrs. Houghton, and the young man, down in the dark lobby of the hotel, with his heart in his mouth, read what both old friends had to say—­then rushed upstairs, two steps at a time, to make his triumphant announcement to his wife: 

“What did I tell you?  Uncle Henry’s white!” He gave her a hug; then, plugging his pipe full of tobacco, handed her the letters, and sat down to watch the effect of them upon her; there was no more “worry” for Maurice!  But Eleanor, standing by the window silhouetted against the yellow twilight, caught her full lower lip between her teeth as she read: 

“Of course,” Mr. Houghton wrote—­(it had taken him the week he had threatened to “concoct” his letter, which he asked his wife if he might not sign “Mr. F.’s aunt.”  “I bet she doesn’t know her Dickens; it won’t convey anything to her,” he begged; “I’ll cut out two cigars a day if you’ll let me do it?” She would not let him, so the letter was perfectly decorous.)—­“Of course it was not the proper way to treat an old friend, and marriage is too serious a business to be entered into in this way.  Also I am sorry that there is any difference in age between you and your wife.  But that is all in the past, and Mrs. Houghton and I wish you every happiness.  We are looking forward to seeing you next month.” ... ("Exactly,” he explained to his Mary, “as I look forward to going to the dentist’s. You tell ’em so.”)