Her husband agreed. "Abominable! Mary, do you mind if I smoke?" "Very much; but you'll do it all the same. I suppose the girl's a mere child?" Then she quailed. "Henry!--she's respectable, isn't she? I couldn't bear it, if--if she was some--dreadful person." He sheltered a sputtering match in his curving hand and lighted a cigar; then he said, "Oh, I suppose she's respectable enough; but she's certainly 'dreadful.' He says she's a music teacher. Probably caught him that way. Music would lead Maurice by the nose. Confound that boy! And his father trusted me." His face twitched with distress. "As for being a 'mere child,'--there; read his letter." She took it, fumbling about for her spectacles; halfway through, she gave an exclamation of dismay. "'A few years older'?--she must be _twenty_ years older!" "Good heavens, Mary!" "Well, perhaps not quite twenty, but--" Henry Houghton groaned. "I'll tell Bradley my opinion of him as a coach." "My dear, Mr. Bradley couldn't have prevented it.... Yes; I remember her perfectly. She came to tea with Mrs. Newbolt several times. Rather a temperamental person, I thought." "'Temperamental'? May the Lord have mercy on him!" he said. "Yes, it comes back to me. Dark eyes? Looked like one of Rossetti's women?" "Yes. Handsome, but a little stupid. She's proved _that_ by marrying Maurice! Oh, what a fool!" Then she tried to console him: "But one of the happiest marriages I ever knew, was between a man of thirty and a much older woman." "But not between a boy of nineteen and a much older woman! The trouble is not her age but his youth. Why didn't she adopt him?... I bet the aunt's cussing, too." "Probably. Well, we've got to think what to do," Mary Houghton said. "Do? What do you mean? Get a divorce for him?" "He's just married; he doesn't want a divorce yet," she said, simply; and her husband laughed, in spite of his consternation. "Oh, lord, I wish I was asleep! I've always been afraid he'd go high-diddle-diddling off with some shady girl;--but I swear, that would have been better than marrying his grandmother! Mary, what I can't understand, is the woman. He's a child, almost; and vanity at having a woman of forty fall in love with him explains him. And, besides, Maurice is no Eurydice; music would lead him into hell, not out of it. It's the other fool that puzzles me." His wife sighed; "If her mind keeps young, it won't matter so much about her body." "My dear," he said, dryly, "human critters are human critters. In ten years it will be an impossible situation." But again she contradicted him: "No! Unhappiness is possible; but _not_ inevitable!" "Dear Goose, may a simple man ask how it is to be avoided?"