"Paul's mother!"

"My dear, do you suppose we mind? It is a very great privilege to be
allowed to step aside when your work is done."

"Paul's _mother!_" Moya insisted.

Mrs. Bogardus rose. "You don't remember your own mother, my dear. You have
an exaggerated idea of the--the importance of mothers. They are only a
temporary arrangement." She put out her hands and the girl's cheek touched
hers for an instant; then she straightened herself and walked calmly out
of the room. Moya remained a little longer, afraid to follow her. "If she
would not smile! If she would do anything but smile!"

Paul was walking about his room, half an hour later, when Moya stopped
outside his door. She placed the tray on a table in the hall. The door was
opened from within. Paul had heard his mother go up before, heard her
pause at the stairs, and, after a silence, enter her own room.

"She knows that I know," he said to himself. "That knowledge will be
always between us; we can never look each other in the face again." To
Moya he endeavored to speak lightly.

"It sounded very gay downstairs to-night. You must have had a houseful."

"I have been with your mother the last hour," answered Moya, vaguely on
the defensive. Since Paul's return there had been little of the old free
intercourse in words between them, and without this outlet their mutual
consciousness became acute. Often as they saw each other during the day,