talkative?"

He nodded: "Yes; a dull woman is bad, and a talkative woman is bad; but
a dull talkative woman is hell."

"My _dear_! I'm glad Edith's in bed. Well, I think I like her."




CHAPTER VI


But the time arrived when Mrs. Houghton was certain that she "liked"
Maurice's wife. It would have come sooner if Eleanor's real sweetness
had not been hidden by her tiresome timidity ... a thunderstorm sent
her, blanched and panting, to sit huddled on her bed, shutters closed,
shades drawn; she schemed not to go upstairs by herself in the dark; she
was preoccupied when old Lion took them off on a slow, jogging drive,
for fear of a runaway.

Everybody was aware of her nervousness. Until it bored him, Henry
Houghton was touched by it;--probably there is no man who is so
intelligent that the Clinging Vine makes no appeal to him. Mrs. Houghton
was impatient with it. Edith, who could not understand fear in any form,
tried, in her friendly little way, to reason Eleanor out of one panic or
another. The servants joked among themselves at the foolishness of "Mrs.
Maurice"; and the monosyllabic Johnny Bennett, when told of some of
Eleanor's scares, was bored. "Let's play Indian," said Johnny.