The Vehement Flame

ated infanticide, that boarding became inevitable. Several times th

ng ducks in the little waiting, empty room upstairs, Eleanor

nished to Mrs. O'Brien), on their wedding anniversary, and instead of celebrating by going

standing with his hands in his pockets surveying the

come," El

, Nelly? I knock up against people at the office

t gi

lows' sister

ant anybod

usly welcomed. "I am a social beggar, myself," he said; and began to whistle and fuss about, trying to bring order out of a chaos of books and photographs and sheet music. She sat watching him-the alert, vigorous figure; the keen face under the shock of blond hair; the blue eyes that crinkled so easily into laughter. Her face was thinner, and ther

he said, kindl

. At first it went smoothly enough because Maurice couldn't blame Eleanor's cook, and Eleanor couldn't say that "nothing she did pleased Maurice"; so two reasons for irritability were eliminated; but a new reason appeared: Maurice's eager

d talkative, gave a little shock of interest and pleasure to the fifteen or twenty people eating indifferent food about a table covered with a not very fresh cloth. Before the meal was over he had made himself agreeable to an elderly woman on his left, ventured some dr

to our family,"

f he'll go to the ball game with me

r said, "He's awf

omment was on

sant people! Nelly, let's get some fun out of this;

er, and she listened to the elderly woman in mourning, whose clever talk was so absorbing to Maurice that sometimes he didn't hear his wife speaking to him! Yes; Eleanor tried. Yet, in less than a month Maurice found himself beside a boarder of his own sex, instead of Mrs. Davis, and saw that the school-teacher was t

ove with him," she conc

No, my dear; she isn't. No jealou

y knew that Maurice seemed to like them-which meant that her society "wasn't enough for him "! So she tried to make it enough for him. At dinner she talked to him so animatedly (and so personally) that no one else could get a word in edgewise. Dinner over, she was uneasy until she had dragged her eager-eyed young husband up to the desert island of their third-floor fron

o he never once called her "silly." He did, occasionally, feel a faint uneasiness lest people might think she was older than he-which was, of course, the beginning of self-consciousness as to what he ha

hope she won't lose her figger; she's gettin' thin. My dear grandmother-she was a Dennison; fat;

nxiety to be of his generation was pathetic-or ludicrous, as one happened to look at it. These friends of Maurice's seemed to have innumerable interests in common with him that she knew nothing about-and jokes! How tired she got of their jokes, which were mostly preposterous badinage, expressed with entire solemnity and ending in yells of laughter. Yet she tried to laugh, too; though she rarely knew what it was all about. There is nothing

lly: "Don't go! I do

n't he be satisfied to stay at home with me?" she s

wives because their wives have plain minds, as because other women have pretty faces.' Well, I'm afraid poor dear mother's mind was plain; that's why I always made an effort to talk to your uncle, and be entertainin'. And I'll tell you anothe

saying it was because they had no children. "When we have a child, he won't want to be with those boys and girls! Oh, why don't we have a baby?" Her longing for children was like physical hunger. But only Mrs. O'Brien understood it. When Eleanor went, in her faithful way, two or three times a w

n an accusation that, because they hadn't a child, he was "getting tired of her"! Whenever she said this foolish thing, there would come, afterward, a rain of repentant tears. But repentance cannot always change the result

at threw the switches now, for Maurice Curtis.... He happened to produce a very soft pencil, which he had b

range woman that way: "If she's a lady she wouldn't wan

sex who objects to being calle

,-but her wishes seemed to be of no importance! "You're tired of me, M

e floor. The falling table struck her knee; she screamed; he flung out of the room-out

ily who ran out into the darkness, and wandered through the streets; then strayed down to the bridge that spanned the hurrying black water of that same river which, two years before, had lisped an

e dark, began a brief, "Excuse me; I stumbled-" saw who it was, and

truck her little fist on the railing. "Well, I'm just

ed. "Has that

on't know why I

he advised, g

moment, the irritation at Eleanor which had driven him out into the night, and it came into his mind that something ought to be d

e Eleanor could give her a hand up?" Then he asked her about herself: Had she friends? Where did her family live? Could she do any work? He was rather diverted by his own philanthropy, but

traightforwardness of his face, and was straightfo

on," he

d toward a part of town more suitable for such excursions, she c

if she's a da

erviews with the Lilys of the locality. At a marble-topped table, translucent with years of ice-cream rendezvous, they waited for his order to b

how many saucers of ice cream they could consume betwee

uld drop him! I hate him. He'

ion was the old human interest of playing with fire, b

man; I expected to marry him

aurice. "Where'

ow. I was o

d more ice cream; then it occurred to him that he ought to let her know t

ied? You're real yo

d love to be a real friend to you. She'll put you on your feet, and think none the worse of you. Tell me about yourself," he urged, intimately;

ich old man; the wicked lover who destroyed trusting innocence; the inevitable facilis descensus-Batty at last. And now the ice-cream parlor in this dirty street, with the clear-eyed, handsome, amused young man, who had f

as as far from sin as she was from virtue-j

l of her own, and gather about her, as assistants, girls who-"well, had had a tough time of it," he said, delicately. As he talked, fatigue at the boredom of his highly mora

ng along," she sai

d, impassioned with the idea of saving her; "t

nt. Lily was again afraid of Batty, and Maurice's exhilaration had begun to ebb; there

where Lily lived, she said, nervous

meet the gentleman! What time will I

uneasily: "Well

eside them. He was plainly drunk. "I lost

-o-w!" He turned, and saw her trying to pull her hand away from Batty's twisting grip: he was at her side in a moment: "Here! Drop it!" he said, sharply-and landed an extreme

and shook her bruised wrist, then gave Maurice an admiring look. "My soul and bod

uld look after you. But we are boarding.... Haven't you some friend you could

!" she thought.) "No; your wife's a busy society lady, I'm sure. Don't bother about me. I'll just

larger and dryer piece of linen, she did

eep, I'll slip

there was some haphazard wandering about in the darkness, then a weary sit

ed one out to

idn't know it. Indeed, he told himself afterward that her silences showed how his words were sinking in! "It only goes to prove," he thought, when at midnight he left her at her ow

ke her up, and sit on the edge of her bed, and tell her of his evening, and wh