"Are you sure," she said, "that you know what the right thing is? You mustn't make a mistake."
"I may be said to have made my share," he told her, dryly.
She did not answer that; she said, passionately, "Maurice, I'd give anything in the world if I could help you!"
"Don't talk that way," he commanded, harshly. "I'm human! So please don't be kind to me, Edith; I can't stand it."
Instantly her heart pounded in her throat: "He cares. Oh, they can't separate us. But they'll try to." ... The rest of the drive was rather silent. On the porch at Green Hill the two older friends were waiting to welcome him. ("Don't let's leave them alone," Henry Houghton had said, with a worried look; which made his wife, in spite of her own uneasiness, smile, "Oh, Henry, you are an innocent creature!") After dinner Mrs. Houghton, determinedly commonplace, came to the rescue of what threatened to be a somewhat conscious occasion, by talking books and music. Her husband may have been "innocent," but he did his part by shoving a cigar box toward the "boy," and saying, "How's business? We must talk Weston's offer over," he said.
Maurice nodded, but got up and went to the piano; "Tough on you, Skeezics," he said once, glancing at Edith.
"Oh, I don't mind it, much," she said, drolly.
So the evening trudged along in secure stupidity. Yet it was a straining stupidity, and there was an inaudible sigh of relief from everybody when, at last, Mary Houghton said, "Come, good people! It's time to go to bed."
"Yes, turn in, Maurice," said his host; "you look tired." Then he got on his feet, and said good night with an alacrity which showed how much he "wished he was asleep"! But he was not permitted to sleep. Maurice, swinging round from the piano, said, with a rather rigid face:
"Would you mind just waiting a minute and letting me tell you something about myself, Uncle Henry?"