When Lily had finished her story he told her his, very briefly: his wife's forgiveness of his unfaithfulness; her desire to do all she could for Jacky: "Help me--I mean help you--to make a man of him, because she loves me. Heaven knows I'm not worthy of it." Lily gulped. "She ain't young; but, my God, she's some woman!" She threw her apron over her face and cried hard; then stopped and wiped her eyes. "She wants to see him, does she? Well, you bet she shall see him! I'll get him; he's playing in at Mr. Dennett's--he's all on being an undertaker now. Mr. Dennett's a Funeral Pomps Director. But he's got to put on his new suit." She ran out on to the porch, and Maurice could hear the colloquy across the fence: "You come in the house, quick!" "Won't. We're going to in-in-inter a hen." "Yes, you will! You're going to put on your new suit and go and see a lady--" "Lady? Not on your life." "It's Mr. Curtis wants you--" Then Jacky's yell, "_Mr. Curtis?_" and a dash up the back steps and into the dining room--then, silent, grimy adoration! Maurice gave his orders. "Change your clothes, young man. I'll bring him back, Lily, as soon as she's seen him." While he waited for the new suit Maurice walked up and down the little room, round and round the table, where on a turkey-red cloth a hideous hammered brass bowl held some lovely maidenhair ferns. The vision of Eleanor abasing herself to Lily was unendurable. To drive it from his mind, he went to the window and stood looking out through the fragrant greenness of rose geraniums, into the squalid street where the offspring of the Funeral Pomps Director were fighting over the dead hen; from the bathroom came the sound of a sputtering gush from the hot-water faucet; then splashes and whining protests, and maternal adjurations: "You got to look decent! I _will_ wash behind your ears. You're the worst boy on the street!" "Eleanor tried to save him," he thought; "she came here, and begged for him!" Above the bathroom noises came Lily's voice, sharp with efficiency, but shaking with pity and a quick-hearted purpose of helping: "Say, Mr. Curtis! Could she eat some fresh doughnuts? (Jacky, if you don't stand still I'll give you a regular spanking! I _didn't_ put soap in your eyes!) If she can, I'll fry some for her to-morrow." Maurice, tramping back and forth, made no answer; he was saying to himself, "If she'll just live, I will make her happy! Oh, she _must_ live!" It was then that, suddenly, agonizingly, in the midst of splashings, and Jacky's whines, and Lily's anxiety about soap and doughnuts, Maurice Curtis prayed ...