“Of course not!” Mary Houghton agreed.  And her husband said, “Any such idea would be nonsense, Maurice.”

“And I myself don’t count,” Maurice went on.

Again Mrs. Houghton agreed—­very gravely:  “Compared to the child, dear Maurice, you don’t.”

“You do!” Edith said; but nobody heard her.

“So at first,” Maurice said, “I kept thinking of how Eleanor had wanted me to have him—­legally, you know; wanted it so much that she—­” there was a silence in the studio; “that she was glad to die, to make it possible.”  He paused, and Mary Houghton saw his cheek twitch.  “Well, I felt that clinched it.  I felt I must carry out her wish, and ask Mrs. Dale to—­marry me.”

“Morbid,” said Henry Houghton.

Edith, listening, said nothing; but she was ready to spring!

“Perhaps it was morbid,” Maurice said; “but just at first it seemed that way to me.  Then I began to realize that what poor Nelly wanted, wasn’t to have me marry Lily—­that was only a means to an end; she wanted Jacky taken care of”; (Edith nodded.) “And she thought marrying his mother was the best way to do that.” (Edith shook her head.)

“Well; I thought it all over ...  I kept myself and my own feelings out of it.”  Behind those laconic words lay the weeks of struggle, of which even these good friends could have no idea!  Weeks in which, while Mercer was deciding what he ought to do, Maurice, “keeping himself out of it,” had put aside ambition and smothered taste, and thrown over, once for all, personal happiness.  As a wrestler strips from his body all hampering things, so he had stripped from his mind every instinct which might interfere with a straight answer to a straight question:  “What will be best for my boy?” He gave the answer now, in Henry Houghton’s studio, while Edith, over in the shadows, at the piano, looked at him.  Her face was quite pale.

“So all I had to do,” said Maurice, “was to think of Jacky’s welfare.  That made it easier to decide.  I find,” he said, simply, “that you can decide things pretty easily if you don’t have to think of yourself.  So I said, ’If I marry Lily, though Jacky couldn’t be taken away from me, physically, spiritually’—­you know what I mean, Mrs. Houghton?—­’he might be removed to—­to the ends of the earth!’ I might lose his affection; and I’ve got to hold on to that, at any cost, because that’s how I can influence him.”  He was talking now entirely to Edith’s mother, and his voice was harsh with entreaty for understanding.  He didn’t care very much whether Henry Houghton understood or not.  And of course Edith could never understand!  But that this serene woman of the stars should misjudge him was unbearable.  “You see what I mean, Mrs. Houghton, don’t you?  I know Lily;—­and I know that if she thought I had any right to say how he must be brought up, it would mean nothing but perfectly hideous controversies all the time!  So long as she thinks she has the upper hand, she’ll be generous; she doesn’t mind his being fond of me, you know.  But she’d fight tooth and nail if she thought I had any rights!  You see that, don’t you?”