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220 morning I'll clear it out. I know you'd like separate beds too, but when Will's things were all unpacked there wasn't room for much new furniture. And I'm sorry, Edith, that you haven't a bath connected. We have only one bathroom in the entire house and even that—"

Edith wouldn't let me finish. We were in the guest-room now. Her eyes were on the cut-glass in the corner.

"I ought never to have gone to Europe," she announced. "Never in this world!"

I wished she had never come home, and when I kissed her good-night, all the old rancour and rebellion, dormant for so long, was raging in my heart. I stole downstairs after I was undressed, pulled out Edith's silver service from underneath the stairs and put it on the sideboard; I unlocked Edith's chest of silver, and began laying the breakfast table with the horns-of-plenty; I dragged out some elaborate breakfast napkins; I hauled down from the top shelf of the pantry a Coalport breakfast-set. At one A.M., when I was crawling back stealthily to our room, I had to pass the guest-chamber door. I heard voices, and stopped a moment.

"It's human nature for a man, single or married, to prefer a woman in pretty clothes, whoever she is," said Edith.

"Of course," Ruth agreed. "When she came in to say good-night did you see the horrid old red worsted bedroom slippers she had on?"

"And moreover," Edith went on, "a man likes an attractive house—pretty pictures, pretty ornaments, a place where he is proud to bring his friends."