He went into his room on tiptoe, but Eleanor heard him and said, sleepily, "What on earth have you been talking about?"
"Who was your lavender-colored letter from?" Eleanor said, yawning; "I forgot to ask you. It was awfully scented!"
There was an instant's pause; Maurice's lips were dry;--then he said:
"From a woman... About a house. (My God! I've _lied_ to her!)" he said to himself...
Mary Houghton, reading comfortably in bed, looked up at her old husband over her spectacles. "I've heated some cocoa, dear," she said. "Drink it before you undress; you are worn out. What kept you downstairs until this hour?"
Mary Houghton smiled: "Might as well tell the truth."
"Oh, Kit, it's a horrid mess!" he groaned; "I thought that boy had got to the top of Fool Hill when he married Eleanor! But he hadn't."
"No. Mary, mayn't I have a cigar? I'm really awfully used up, and--"
"Henry! You are perfectly depraved! No; you may _not_. Drink your cocoa, honey. And consider the stars;--they shine, even above Fool Hill. And 'messes' look mighty small beside the Pleiades!" Then she turned a page of her novel, and added, "Poor Eleanor."
"I don't know why you say 'Poor Eleanor'!"
"Because I know that Maurice isn't sharing his 'mess' with her."
"You are uncanny!" Henry Houghton said, stirring his cocoa and looking at her admiringly.
"No; merely intelligent. Henry, don't let him have any secrets from Eleanor! Tell him to _tell_ her. She'll forgive him."
"Dear, _almost_ every woman is 'that kind'! It's deception, not confession, that makes them--the other kind. If Maurice will confess--"
"I haven't said there was anything to confess," he protested, in alarm.
"Oh no; certainly not. You haven't said a word! (Well; you may have just one of those _little_ cigars--you poor dear!) Henry, listen: If Maurice hangs a secret round his neck it will drown him."
"If Eleanor would make cocoa for him at one o'clock in the morning there would be no chance for secrets. Kit, I have long known that you are the wisest, as well as the most virtuous and most lovable of your sex, and that I shall only get to heaven by hanging on to your petticoats; but in this one particular I am much more intelligent than you."
"Heaven send you a good opinion of yourself!" his wife murmured.