“I see it!” Edith said.

“Yet from a merely material point of view,” said Mrs. Houghton, “in spite of ‘controversies,’ legitimacy would give Jacky advantages, which—­oh, Maurice, don’t you see?—­your son has a right to!”

But her husband said, quickly, “Mary, living with a quarreling father and mother is spiritual illegitimacy; and the disadvantages of that would be worse than the material handicap of being a—­a fatherless child.”

His daughter flashed a passionately grateful look at him.

Maurice, still speaking to Edith’s mother, said:  “That’s the way I looked at it, Mrs. Houghton.  So it seemed to me that I could do more for him if I didn’t marry Lily.”

Mary Houghton was silent; it was very necessary to consider the stars.

“I put myself out of it,” Maurice said.  “I just said, ’If it’s best for Jacky, I’ll ask her to marry me,’ My honest opinion was that it would be bad for him.”

Edith struck two chords—­and sat down on the piano stool, swallowing hard.

“You don’t agree with me, I’m afraid, Mrs. Houghton?” he said, anxiously.

“My dear boy,” she said, “I am sure you are doing what you believe to be right.  But it does not seem right to me.”

He flinched, but he was not shaken; “It isn’t going to be easy, whatever I do.  I want to educate him, and see him constantly, and influence him as much as possible.  And Lily will be less jealous of me, in her own house, than she would be in mine.”

Edith got up and came and sat on the arm of the sofa by her father.  “I can see,” she said, “how much easier it would be for Maurice to do the hard thing.”

Maurice looked at her with deep tenderness.  “You are a satisfying person!” he said.

Henry Houghton took his girl’s hand, and held it in a grip that hurt her.  “Maurice is right,” he said; “things are not going to be easy for him.  For, though he won’t marry Jacky’s mother, he won’t, I think, marry anybody else.”

“Why won’t he?” said Edith.

“There is no moral reason why he shouldn’t,” her father conceded; “it is a question of taste; one might perhaps call it a question of honor”—­Maurice whitened, but Henry Houghton went on, calmly, “Maurice will, of necessity, be so involved with this woman—­and God knows what annoyances she may make for him, that—­it distresses me to say so—­but I can see that he will not feel like asking any woman to share such a burden as he has to carry.”

“If he loves any woman,” Edith said, “let him ask her!  If she turns him down, it stamps her for a coward!”

“Don’t you think I’m right, Maurice?” her father said.

“Yes,” Maurice said.  “You are right.  I’ve faced that.”

Edith sprang to her feet, and stood looking at her father and mother, her eyes stern with protecting passion.  “It seems to me absurd,” she said,—­“like standing up so straight you fall over backward!—­for Maurice to feel he can’t marry—­somebody else, just because he—­he did wrong, ever so many years ago!  He’s sorry, now.  Aren’t you sorry, Maurice?” she said.