"What I'm afraid of," she said, with a troubled look, "is that you are right:—she's inclined to be jealous, I saw her frown when he was playing checkers with Edith. I wanted to tell her, but didn't dare to, that jealousy is as amusing to people who don't feel it, as it is undignified in people who do."
"My darling, you are a brute," said Mr. Houghton; "I have long suspected it, in re tobacco. As for Eleanor, I would never have such cruel thoughts! I belong to the gentler sex. I would merely refer her to Mr. F.'s aunt."
CHAPTER VIII
They reached Mercer in the rainy October dusk. It was cold and raw, and a bleak wind blew up the river, which, with its shifting film of oil, bent like a brown arm about the grimy, noisy town. The old hotel, with its Doric columns grimed with years of smoky river fogs, was dark, and smelled of soot; and the manners of the waiters and chambermaids would have set Eleanor's teeth on edge, except that she was so absorbed in the thrill of being back under the roof which had sheltered them in those first days of bliss.
"Do you remember?" she said, significantly.
Maurice, looking after suitcases and hand bags, said, absently, "Remember what?" She told him "what" and he said: "Yes. Where do you want this trunk put, Eleanor?"
She sighed; to sentimentalize and receive no response in kind, is like sitting down on a chair which isn't there. After dinner, when she and Maurice came up to their room, which had fusty red hangings and a marble-topped center table standing coldly under a remote chandelier, she sighed again, for Maurice said that, as for this hole of a hotel, the only thing he thought of, was how soon they could get out of it! "I can get that little house I told you about, only it's rather out of the way. Not many of your kind of people 'round!"
She knelt down beside him, pushing his newspaper aside and pressing her cheek against his. "That doesn't make any difference!" she said; "I'm glad not to know anybody. I just want you! I don't want people."
"Neither do I," Maurice agreed; "I'd have to shell out my cigars to 'em if they were men!"