“Oh, Henry, you are an innocent creature!”) After dinner Mrs. Houghton, determinedly commonplace, came to the rescue of what threatened to be a somewhat conscious occasion, by talking books and music.  Her husband may have been “innocent,” but he did his part by shoving a cigar box toward the “boy,” and saying, “How’s business?  We must talk Weston’s offer over,” he said.

Maurice nodded, but got up and went to the piano; “Tough on you, Skeezics,” he said once, glancing at Edith.

“Oh, I don’t mind it, much,” she said, drolly.

So the evening trudged along in secure stupidity.  Yet it was a straining stupidity, and there was an inaudible sigh of relief from everybody when, at last, Mary Houghton said, “Come, good people!  It’s time to go to bed.”

“Yes, turn in, Maurice,” said his host; “you look tired.”  Then he got on his feet, and said good night with an alacrity which showed how much he “wished he was asleep”!  But he was not permitted to sleep.  Maurice, swinging round from the piano, said, with a rather rigid face: 

“Would you mind just waiting a minute and letting me tell you something about myself, Uncle Henry?”

“Of course not!” Mr. Houghton said, with great assumption of cheerfulness.  He went back to the sofa—­furtively achieving a cigar as he did so—­and saying to himself, “Well, at least it will give me a chance to let him see how I feel about his ever marrying again.”

Edith was standing by the piano, one hand resting on the keyboard and drumming occasionally in disconnected octaves. ("If it’s business,” she thought, “I’ll leave them alone; but if they are going to ‘advise’ him, I’ll stay—­and fight.”)

Maurice came and sat on the edge of the big table, his hands in his pockets, and one foot swinging nervously.  “I hope you dear people don’t think I’m an ungrateful cuss, not to have come to Green Hill this summer; but the fact is, I’ve been awfully up against it, trying to make up my mind about something.”

Henry Houghton looked at the fire end of his cigar with frowning intentness and said yes, he supposed so.  “Weston’s offer seems to me fair,” he said (this referred to a partnership possibility, on which Maurice had consulted him by letter); but his remark, now, was so obviously a running to cover that, in spite of himself, Maurice grinned.  “Weston’s a very square fellow,” said Henry Houghton.

“If you are going to talk ‘offers,’” said Edith, “do you want me to clear out?”

“It isn’t business,” Maurice said, quietly; “it’s my ... little son.  No; don’t clear out, Edith.  I’d rather talk to your mother and Uncle Henry before you.”

“All right,” said Edith, and struck some soft chords; but her young mouth was hard.

“Of course,” Maurice said, “as things are now—­I mean poor Eleanor gone—­I have thought a good deal of what I ought to do for Jacky.  It was Nelly’s wish that I should do the straight thing for him.  There wasn’t any question, I think, of the ‘straight thing’ for Lily—­”