“Well, perhaps just a little satisfied in my heart. Cecily made me the butt of the town for weeks with that Ellen stuff. Do you blame me for a little human nature?” “I don’t blame you for anything, Fliss. I accept you.” “And Cecily?” “I said that was none of our business.” “Then why spend so long composing notes to her last night?” He looked at her accusingly. “In the wastebasket, my dear. I don’t always go over it, but I was so interested. Evidently you hadn’t gone very far with any of the notes.” “Once in a while I think that nothing but a spanking, Fliss----” “Wife-beater!” “I’ll write my notes downtown after this, you know.” “I suppose so. I’ll have to bribe the janitor to save me the wastebaskets. Well, if you won’t talk about Cecily, let’s talk about Washington. I get a little weak in the knees when I think of all I’ll have to learn. I don’t mean to get too many clothes, either. But the ones I do get----” “I was wondering if I hadn’t better go on alone at first. I could get a bit adjusted and I can’t see how you can leave your mother.” Her face clouded. “I know, Matthew. I seem a heartless brute, but there’s nothing I can do; and she gets so irritated at me now; and whenever I go there and try to do anything she and Mrs. Ellis are hobnobbing over horrors in that dreadful way and everything is so awful. Matthew, don’t leave me with them!” “Why, no, you’d have your own house. It would only be for a little while. But I’ll take you if you want to go so badly. I do get a little sorry for your father. He’s----” “But I tell you there’s nothing I can do for him. I have tried! But I can’t sit through endless hours of moving pictures and silence.” “Well, dear, you can’t help if you feel like that. It is probably true you could do nothing.” “Where are you going to-night?” “Going to work unless you need me.” “No, I told Polly Angell that I thought you couldn’t come to dinner and she asked me to come anyway. She found an extra man.” “Ames?” Fliss nodded. “You ought to leave him alone. What do you get out of it?” But she parried his question with a laugh. “Well, you told me that _you_ wouldn’t make love to me. I have to have some one.” “Run along--and behave yourself.” She left his room and going down to the library, picked up the Washington evening papers, turning to the page which gave the social news. Over that she bent a puckered brow, studying names. BOOK THREE CHAPTER XXII