The Vehement Flame | Page 7

an hour's shopping to do? You have only one of
the vices of your sex, Mary, you have the 'shopping mind.' However,
with all thy faults I love thee still.... We'll go to the post office first;
then I can read my letters while you are colloguing with the
storekeepers."
Mrs. Houghton, looking at her list, agreed, and when he got out for the
mail she was still checking off people and purchases; it was only when
she had added one or two more errands that she suddenly awoke to the
fact that he was very slow in coming back with the letters. "Stupid!"
she thought, "opening your mail in the post office, instead of keeping it
to read while I'm shopping!"--but even as she reproached him, he came
out and climbed into the buggy, in very evident perturbation.
"Where 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