"Can't. Have to write letters."
"Edith, if you'll come into the studio I'll play you something I've patched up."
"I'm a heathen about music. Let's sit with Eleanor."
"Skeezics, what's the matter with you? Why won't you come and walk? You're getting lazy in your old age!"
"Busy," Edith said, vaguely.
At this point Maurice insisted, and Edith sneaked out to the back entry and telephoned Johnny Bennett: "Come over, lazybones, and take some exercise!"
John came, with leaps and bounds, so to speak, and Maurice said, grumpily:
"What do you lug Johnny in for?"
So, during the rest of her visit (with John Bennett as Maurice's chaperon!) Eleanor merely ached with dislike of Edith; but, even so, she had the small relief of not having to say to herself: "Is he seeing Mrs. Dale, now? ... Did he go to her house yesterday?" Of course, as soon as she went back to Mercer those silent questions began again; and her audible question nagged Maurice whenever he was in the house: "Did you go to the theater last night? ... Yes? Did you go alone? ... Will you be home to-night to dinner? ... No? Where are you going?"
Maurice, answering with bored patience, thought, with tender amusement, of Edith's advice, "Tell Eleanor." How little she knew!