"To add to golden numbers, golden numbers! 0 sweet content! O sweet, O sweet content!" Maurice sat down; it was as if, after beating against crashing seas with a cargo of shame and fear, he had turned suddenly into a still harbor: the faintly lighted studio, the stillness of the summer evening, the lovely voice--the peace and dignity and safety of it all gave him a strange sense of unreality... Then, suddenly, he heard them all laughing and telling Eleanor they were sorry for her, to have such an unappreciative husband!--and he realized that the fatigue of terror had made him fall asleep. Later, when he came to the supper table, he was still dazed. He said he had a headache, and could not eat; instantly Eleanor's anxiety was alert. She suggested hot-water bags and mustard plasters, until Mr. Houghton said to himself: "How _does_ he stand it? Mary must tell her not to be a mother to him--or a grandmother." All that hot evening, out on the porch, Maurice was silent--so silent that, as they separated for the night, his guardian put a hand on his shoulder, "Come into the studio," he said; "I want to show you a thing I've been muddling over." Maurice followed him into the vast, shadowy, untidy room ("No females with dusters allowed on the premises!" Henry Houghton used to say), glanced at a half-finished canvas, said, "Fine!" and turned away. "Anything out of kilter? I mean, besides your headache?" "Well ... yes." ("He's going to say he's hard up--the extravagant cuss!" Henry Houghton thought, with the old provoked affection.) "I'm bothered about ... something," Maurice began. ("He's squabbled with Eleanor. I wish I was asleep!") "Uncle Henry," Maurice said, "if you were going to see a lawyer, who would you see?" "I wouldn't see him. Lawyers make their cake by cooking up other people's troubles. Sit down. Let's talk it out." He settled himself in a corner of the ragged old horsehair sofa which faced the empty fireplace and motioned Maurice to a chair. "I thought it wasn't all headache; what's the matter, boy?" Maurice sat down, cleared his throat, and put his hands in his pockets so they would not betray him. "I--" he said. Mr. Houghton appeared absorbed in biting off the end of his cigar. "I--" Maurice said again. "Maurice," said Henry Houghton, "keep the peace. If you and Eleanor have fallen out, don't stand on your dignity. Go upstairs and say you're sorry, whether you are or not. Don't talk about lawyers." "My God!" said Maurice; "did you suppose it was _that_?" Mr. Houghton stopped biting the end of his cigar, and looked at him. "Why, yes; I did. You and she are rather foolish, you know. So I supposed--" Maurice dropped his face on his arms on the big dusty table, littered with pamphlets and charcoal studies and squeezed-out paint tubes. After a while he lifted his head: "_That's_ nothing. I wish it was that."