Page:Keeping the Peace.pdf/81

 And so she did.

She climbed the attic stair so quickly that Edward didn't hear her, and what she saw delighted her so that she withdrew her face and presence without saying a word.

The little hypocrite had made an altar of a soap box, and on the wall above it he had hung two sticks of wood nailed in the form of a cross, and, prayer book in hand, and murmuring the words very softly, he was conducting a church service.

Edward had no notion that he was committing a sacrilege. He only knew that in order to keep the peace with a mother like his mother, a little boy cannot afford to stop at anything.

An event was the return of the Armitages from their honeymoon in Europe. Bruce was his old natural self, but somehow he seemed to be a less important and gilded personage than formerly. Ruth was the important member of the union. Her body had gained weight and her voice had gained authority. The fact that she was a married woman seemed more important to her than the characteristics and character of the particular man she happened to have married. Almost any man of twenty-seven with ten thousand a year would have done as well.

Well, it seemed that the plans for the future