"Why, Eleanor," he faltered; "why are you--on your ear? Was it what I
told you about Edith? You didn't think that she wasn't _proper_?"

"No! Of course not! It wasn't _that_." She came quickly and knelt beside
him. "Of course it wasn't _that_! It was--" She could not say what it
was; perhaps she did not quite know that her annoyance at Maurice's
delight in Edith was the inarticulate pain of recognizing that he might
have more in common with a child, eight years his junior, than he could
have with a woman twenty years his senior. Her eyes were suddenly bright
with frightened tears. In a whisper, that fear which, in these days of
complete belief in her own happiness, she had forgotten even to deny,
came back: "What really upset me was the letters. The Houghtons are
angry because I am--" she flinched, and would not utter the final word
which was the hidden reason of her annoyance at Edith; so, instead of
uttering it, she said, "because we eloped."

As for Maurice, he rallied her, and pretended to scold her, and tasted
her tears salt upon his lips. He felt very old and protecting.

"Nonsense!" he said. "Mrs. Houghton and Uncle Henry are old, and of
course they can't understand love. But the romance of it will touch
them!"

And again Love cast out Fear; Eleanor, her face hidden on his shoulder,
told herself that it really didn't matter what the Houghtons thought
of ... an elopement.