do you want to go?" he said; she, asking no questions (marvelous woman!) told him. He said "G'tap!" angrily; Lion backed, and the wheel screeched against the curb. "Oh, g'on!" he said. Lion switched his tail, caught a rein under it, and trotted off. Mr. Houghton leaned over the dashboard, swore softly, and gave the horse a slap with the rescued rein. But the outburst loosened the dumb distress that had settled upon him in the post office; he gave a despairing grunt:
"Well! Maurice has come the final cropper."
"Smith's next, dear," she said; "What is it, Henry?"
"He's gone on the rocks (druggist Smith, or fish Smith?)"
"Druggist. Has Maurice been drinking?" She could not keep the anxiety out of her voice.
"Drinking? He could be as drunk as a lord and I wouldn't—Whoa, Lion! … Get me some shaving soap, Kit!" he called after her, as she went into the shop.
When she came back with her packages and got into the buggy, she said, quietly, "Tell me, Henry."
"He has simply done what I put him in the way of doing when I gave him a letter of introduction to that Mrs. Newbolt, in Mercer."
"Newbolt? I don't remember—"
"Yes, you do. Pop eyes. Fat. Talked every minute, and everything she said a nonsequitur. I used to wonder why her husband didn't choke her. He was on our board. Died the year we came up here. Talked to death, probably."
"Oh yes. I remember her. Well?"
"I thought she might make things pleasant for Maurice while he was cramming. He doesn't know a soul in Mercer, and Bradley's game leg wouldn't help out with sociability. So I gave him letters to two or three people. Mrs. Newbolt was one of them. I hated her, because she dropped her g's; but she had good food, and I thought she'd ask him to dinner once in a while."
"Well?"
"She did. And he's married her niece."
"What! Without your consent! I'm shocked that Mrs. Newbolt permitted—"
"Probably her permission wasn't asked, any more than mine."
"You mean an elopement? How outrageous in Maurice!" Mrs. Houghton said.
Her husband agreed. "Abominable! Mary, do you mind if I smoke?"
"Very much; but you'll do it all the same. I suppose the girl's a mere child?" Then she quailed. "Henry!—she's respectable, isn't she? I couldn't bear it, if—if she was some—dreadful person."
He sheltered a sputtering match in his curving hand and lighted a cigar; then he said, "Oh, I suppose she's respectable enough; but she's certainly 'dreadful.' He says she's a music teacher. Probably caught him that way. Music would lead Maurice by the nose. Confound that boy! And his father trusted me." His face twitched with distress. "As for being a 'mere child,'—there; read his letter."
She took it, fumbling about for her spectacles; halfway through, she gave an exclamation of dismay. "'A few years older'?—she must be twenty years older!"
"Good heavens, Mary!"
"Well, perhaps not quite twenty, but—"
Henry Houghton groaned. "I'll tell Bradley my opinion of him as a coach."
"My dear, Mr. Bradley couldn't have prevented it. … Yes; I remember her perfectly. She came to tea with Mrs. Newbolt several times. Rather a temperamental person, I thought."
"'Temperamental'? May the Lord have mercy on him!" he said. "Yes, it comes back to me. Dark eyes? Looked like one of Rossetti's women?"
"Yes. Handsome, but a little stupid. She's proved that by marrying Maurice! Oh, what a fool!" Then she tried to console him: "But one of the happiest marriages I ever knew, was between a man of thirty and a much older woman."
"But not between a boy of nineteen and a much older woman! The trouble is not her age but his youth. Why didn't she adopt him? … I bet the aunt's cussing, too."
"Probably. Well, we've got to think what to do," Mary Houghton said.
"Do? What do you mean? Get a divorce for him?"
"He's just married; he doesn't want a divorce yet," she said, simply; and her husband laughed, in spite of his consternation.
"Oh, lord, I wish I was asleep! I've always been afraid he'd go high-diddle-diddling off with some shady girl;—but I swear, that would have been better than marrying his grandmother! Mary, what I can't understand, is the woman. He's a child, almost; and vanity at having a woman of forty fall in love with him explains him. And, besides, Maurice is no Eurydice; music would lead him into hell, not out of it. It's the other fool that puzzles me."
His wife sighed; "If her mind keeps young, it won't matter so much about her body."
"My dear," he said, dryly, "human critters are human critters. In ten years it will be an impossible situation."
But again she contradicted him: "No! Unhappiness is possible; but not inevitable!"
"Dear Goose, may a simple man ask how it is to be avoided?"
"By unselfishness," she said; "no marriage ever went on the rocks where both 'human critters' were unselfish! But I hope this poor, foolish woman's mind will keep young. If it doesn't, well, Maurice will just have to be tactful. If he is, it may not be so very bad," she said, with determined optimism.
"Kit, when a man has to be 'tactful' with his wife, God help him!—or a woman with her husband," he added in a sudden tender afterthought. "We've never been 'tactful' with each other, Mary?" She smiled, and put her cheek against his shoulder. "'Tactfulness' between a husband and wife," said Henry Houghton, "is confession that their marriage is a failure. You may tell 'em so, from me."
"You may tell them yourself!" she retorted. "What are they going to live on?" she pondered "Can his allowance be increased?"
"It can't. You know his father's will. He won't get his money until he's twenty-five."
"He'll have to go to work," she said; "which means not going back to college, I suppose?"
"Yes," he said, grimly; "who would support his lady-love while he was in college? And it means giving up his music," he added.
"If he makes as much out of his renunciation as you have out of yours," she said, calmly, "we may bless this poor woman yet."
"Oh, you old humbug," he told her—but he smiled.
Then she repeated to him an old, old formula for peace; "'Consider the stars,' Henry, and young foolishness will seem very small. Maurice's elopement won't upset the universe."
They were both silent for a while; then Mary Houghton said, "I'll write the invitation to them; but you must second it when you answer his letter."
"Invitation? What invitation?"
"Why, to come and stay at Green Hill until you can find something for him to do."
"I'll be hanged if I invite her! I'll have nothing to do with her! Maurice can come, of course; but he can't bring—"
His wife laughed, and he, too, gave a reluctant chuckle. "I suppose I've got to?" he groaned.
"Of course, you've got to!" she said.
The rest of the ride back to the old stone house among its great trees, halfway up the mountain, was silent. Mrs. Houghton was thinking what room she would give the bride and groom—for the little room Maurice had had in all his vacations since he became her husband's ward was not suitable. "Edith will have to let them have her room," she thought. She knew she could count on Edith not to make a fuss. "It's such a comfort that Edith has sense," she ruminated aloud.
But her husband was silent; there was no more whistling for Henry Houghton that day.
CHAPTER III