Of course this was as unintelligible to Eleanor as it is to all women of her type of mind.  So, instead of considering Maurice’s enjoyment of society, she committed the absurdity of urging him to enjoy what she enjoyed—­a solitude of two.  To herself she explained his desire to see other people, by saying it was because they had no children.  “When we have a child, he won’t want to be with those boys and girls!  Oh, why don’t we have a baby?” Her longing for children was like physical hunger.  But only Mrs. O’Brien understood it.  When Eleanor went, in her faithful way, two or three times a week, to sing to little sickly Don (and pet the boarding and rather pining Bingo), Mrs. O’Brien, listening to the little songs, pretty and silly, would draw a puckery hand over her eyes:  “She’d ought to have a dozen of her own!  If that boy don’t treat her good, I’ll iron off every button he’s got!”

When Eleanor (hoping for a baby) worried lest Maurice’s hopes, too, were disappointed, her gentleness to him was passionate and beseeching; but sometimes, watching his attention to other people, the gentleness grew rigid in an accusation that, because they hadn’t a child, he was “getting tired of her”!  Whenever she said this foolish thing, there would come, afterward, a rain of repentant tears.  But repentance cannot always change the result of foolish words—­and the result is so often out of proportion to the words!  As Maurice had said that day in their meadow, of Professor Bradley and the banana skin—­a very little thing “can throw the switches,” in human life!

It was the “little thing” of a lead pencil, in keeping the accounts of their endless games of solitaire, that threw the switches now, for Maurice Curtis....  He happened to produce a very soft pencil, which he had borrowed, he said, “from a darned pretty woman he was showing a house to,” and had forgotten to return to her.

Eleanor said it seemed to her bad taste to talk of a strange woman that way:  “If she’s a lady she wouldn’t want a man she didn’t know to speak so—­so lightly of her.”

“I have yet to meet one of your sex who objects to being called pretty,” Maurice said, dryly.

To which Eleanor replied that she preferred a hard lead pencil, anyhow,—­but her wishes seemed to be of no importance!  “You’re tired of me, Maurice.”  He said, “Oh, damn!” She said, “I won’t have you swear at me!”

He pushed back his chair, toppled the flimsy table over, scattering all the cards on the floor.  The falling table struck her knee; she screamed; he flung out of the room—­out of the house, into the hot darkness of an August night....  The switches were thrown....

Down on Tyler Street there had been another quarrel—­as trivial as the difference of opinion as to hard and soft lead pencils, and again human lives were shifted from one track to another.  It was Lily who ran out into the darkness, and wandered through the streets; then strayed down to the bridge that spanned the hurrying black water of that same river which, two years before, had lisped and laughed under Maurice and Eleanor’s happy eyes.  Lily, watching the current, thought angrily of Batty—­then a passing elbow jostled her and some one said, “Beg pardon!” She turned and saw Maurice.