The Vehement Flame | Page 8

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
Edith and her fourteen-year-old neighbor, Johnny Bennett, had climbed
into the old black-heart cherry tree--(Johnny always conceded that
Edith was a good climber--"for a girl.") But when they saw Lion,
tugging up the road, Edith, who was economical with social amenities,
told her guest to go home. "I don't want you any longer," she said;
"father and mother are coming!" And with that she rushed around to the
stable door, just in time to meet the returning travelers, and ask a dozen
questions--the first:
"Did you get a letter from Maurice?"
But when her father threw the reins down on Lion's back, and said,
briefly, "Can't you unharness him yourself, Buster?" she stuck out her

tongue, opened her eyes wide, and said nothing except, "Yes, father."
Then she proceeded, with astonishing speed, to put Lion into his stall,
run the buggy into the carriage house, and slam the stable door, after
which she tore up to her mother's room.
"Mother! Something has bothered father!"
"Well, yes," Mrs. Houghton said; "a little. Maurice is married."
Edith's lips fell apart; "Maurice? _Married_? Who to? Did she wear a