affair; but Luella was different. Luella had been a rival. The merest courtesy to Luella was an unpardonable affront to every sacred right of successful rivalry.

The submerged bitternesses that had gathered in her soul like bubbles at the bottom of a hot kettle came showering upward now, and her heart simmered and thrummed, ready to boil over if the heat were not removed.

One day, soon, Luella fastened on Eddie as he left the factory to go home to dinner. She had loitered about, hoping to engage the eye of Jabez, who was now the most important widower in town. Luella had elected him for her next; but he was away, and she whetted her wits on Eddie. She walked at his side, excruciating him with her glib memories of old times and the mad devotion he had cherished for her then.

He felt that it was unfaithful of him even to listen to her, but he could not spur up courage enough to bolt and run. He welcomed the sight of his own gate as an asylum of refuge. To his horror, Luella stopped and continued her chatter, draping herself in emotional attitudes and italicizing her coquetries. Her eyes seemed to drawl languorous words that her lips dared not voice; and she committed the heinous offense of plucking at Eddie's coat-sleeve and clinging to his hand. Then she walked on like an erect cobra.

Eddie's very back had felt that Pheeny was watching him from one of the windows or from all the windows; for when, at last, he achieved the rude victory of breaking away from Luella and turned toward the porch, every window was a somber eye of reproach.

He would not have looked so guilty if he had been guilty. He shuffled into the house like a boy who comes home late from swimming; and when he called aloud "Pheeny! Oh, Pheeny!" his voice cracked and his throat was uncertain with phlegm.

He found Pheeny up-stairs in their room, with the door closed. He closed it after him when he went in. He feigned a care-free joy at the sight of her, and stumbled over his own foot as he crossed the room and put his arms about her, where she sat in the big rocking-chair; but she brushed his arms aside and bent her cheek away from his pursed lips. This startled him, and he gasped:

"Why, what's the matter, honey? Why don't you kiss me?"

"You don't want to kiss me," she muttered.

"Why don't I?" he exclaimed.

"Because I'm not pirty. I'm not young. I'm not round or tall. I haven't got nice clothes or those terrible manners that men like in women. You're tired of me. I don't blame you; but you don't have to kiss me, and you don't want to."

It was a silly sort of contest for so old a couple; but their souls felt as young as childhood, or younger, and this debate was all-important. He caught at her again and tried to drag her head to his lips, pleading inanely:

"Of course I want to kiss you, honey! Of course I do! Please—please don't be this way!"

But she evaded him still, and glared at him as from a great distance, sneering rather at herself than him and using that old byword of Luella's:

"What can you see in me?" Suddenly she challenged him: "Who do you kiss when you kiss me?"

He stared at her for a while as if he were not sure who she was. Then he sat down on the broad arm of her chair and took one of her hands in his—the hand with the wedding-ring on it—and seemed to talk to the hand more than to her, lifting the fingers one after another and studying each digit as though it had a separate personality—as perhaps it had.

XIV

"Who do I kiss when I kiss you? That's a funny question!"

He laughed solemnly. Then he made a very long speech, for him; and she listened to it with the attention due to that most fascinating of themes, the discussion of oneself by another.

"Pheeny, when I was about knee-high to a grasshopper I went over to play in Tim Holdredge's father's orchard; and when I started for home there was a big dawg in old Mrs. Pittinger's front yard, and it jumped round and barked at me. I guess it was just playing, because, as I remember it now, it was wagging its tail, and afterward I found out it was only a cocker spaniel; but I thought it was a wolf and was going to eat me. I begun to cry, and I was afraid to go backward or to go forward. And by and by a little girl came along and asked me what I was crying about, and I said, 'About the dawg!' And the little girl said: 'O-oh! He's big, ain't he?' And I said, 'He's goin' to eat one of us all up!' And the little girl said: 'Aw, don't you care! You take a-holt of my hand and I'll run past with you; and if he bites he'll bite me first and you can git away!' She was as scared as I was, but she grabbed my hand and we got by without being et up. Do you remember who that little girl was?"

The hand in his seemed to remember. The fingers of it closed on his a moment, then relaxed as if to listen for more. He mused on:

"I wasn't very big for my size even then, and I wasn't very brave ever. I didn't like to fight, like the other boys did, and I used to rather take a lickin' than give one. Well, one day I was playin' marbles with another boy, and he said I cheated when I won his big taw; but I didn't. He wanted to fight, though, and he hit me; and I wouldn't hit back. He was smaller than what I was, and he give me a lot of lip and dared me to fight; and I just couldn't. He said I was afraid, and so did the other boys; and I guess I was. It seemed to me I was more afraid of hurtin' somebody else than gettin' hurt myself; but I guess I was just plain afraid. The other boys began to push me round and call me a cowardy calf, and I began to cry. I wanted to run home, but I was afraid to start to run. And then a little girl came along and said: 'What's the matter, Eddie? What you cryin' for?' And I said, 'They're all pickin' on me and callin' me cowardy calf!' And she said: 'Don't you care! You come right along with me; and if one of 'em says another word to you I'll scratch their nasty eyes out!' Do you remember that, Pheeny?"

Her other hand came forward and embraced his wrist.

"And another time you found me cryin'. I was a little older, and I'd studied hard and tried to get my lessons good; but I failed in the exam'nations, and I was goin' to tie a rock round my neck and jump in the pond. But you said: 'Aw, don't you care, Eddie! I didn't pass in mine, either!'

"And when I wanted to go to college, and Uncle Loren wouldn't send me, I didn't cry outside, but I cried inside; and I told you and you said: 'Don't you care! I don't get to go to boardin'-school myself.'

"And when I was fool enough to think I liked that no-account Luella Thickins, and thought I'd go crazy because her wax-doll face wouldn't smile for me, you said: 'Don't you care, Eddie! You're much too good for her. I think you're the finest man in the country.'

"And when the baby didn't come and I acted like a baby myself, you said: 'Don't you care, Eddie! Ain't we got each other?'

"Seems like ev'ry time I been ready to lay down and die you've been there with your old 'Don't you care! It's going to be all right!'

"Just last night I had a turrible dream. I didn't tell you about it for fear it would upset you. I dreamed I got awful sick at the office. I couldn't seem to add the figures right and the old desk wabbled. Finally I had to leave off and start for home, though it was only a quarter of twelve; and I had to set down on Doc Noxon's horse-block and on Holdredge's wall to rest; and I couldn't get our gate open. And you run out and dragged me in, and got me up-stairs somehow, and sent Delia around for the doctor.

"Doc Noxon made you have a trained nurse, but I couldn't stand her; and I