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ANDRÉE was wandering about the “second parlour” that Sunday afternoon, in a state of joyful idleness, humming to herself. It was so blissful to be at home again, now that the horrible shadow was lifted from her mother. She felt a new and precious sense of lightness and irresponsibility, a return of girlhood. She loved the old life, the kindly servants, the jolly breakfasts with Bertie and Edna, she was even ready to love the stuffy and decorous Sundays she had once found so hateful. Her father was sitting by the open window, reading the paper, and she loved him too; because he looked just as he had always looked to her. She went over to him and kissed the top of his head. He glanced up and smiled.
“Well!” he said.
“Well!” she answered. “Are you happy? I am!”
They were thoroughly and beautifully reconciled now. In spite of his disappointment over the conduct of other people under the shadow of death, Gilbert knew that he had acted properly. He had forgiven his daughter, and he intended, in due course of time, to forgive his son-in-law. He had been profoundly affected by Claudine’s illness; he had wished to be with her constantly. But she had not wanted him; she had turned always to Andrée. He had certainly expected, although they had been more or less estranged for some years, that under the shadow of death she would come back to him. She should have said, “After all, we have lived more than twenty years together in storm and sunshine. Let us forget our differences!” But she had not. She had said nothing at all, except to thank him for the profusion of flowers he sent. They hadn’t had a single touching conversation. On that night, which he had spent at her bedside, in agony and fear, she had not even seen him; she had lain gasping, exhausted, bathed in perspiration, with half-open eyes, as far away from him as if she were already dead. It was Edna who had consoled him, and led him away, and it was Andrée who had stayed by Claudine until the crisis was past. It was always Andrée’s name she had murmured—“Andrée! Baby! My baby!”
He had done his best to be just and temperate about this, but it hurt. And as she began to grow better, and the danger was over, his old exasperation at her aloofness returned. He had really longed for a reconciliation; he would have told her frankly that he was sorry for many things in the past, and that he hoped with all his heart to understand her better in the future. It was his eternal passion for something perfect and beautiful in life; if only these twenty years could be crowned now with love, he could have been content. It was easy for him to forgive and forget, the sins of other people as well as his own. But it was not easy for Claudine. He clung to her, for he had nothing else, but she had turned away from him to her children, and she had forgotten him.
He had made a very thoughtful provision for her convalescence. He had learned from her lawyer that her old home in Staten Island—which her father had left her at his death—was temporarily vacant, and he had secured it for a year. Half of it, that is, for her father had converted it into a double house, an improvement by which she had profited, for she had received rent for both halves for years. With the help of Edna he had removed from the storage warehouse as much of Mrs. Mason’s old furniture as they thought good, and later in the spring, when Claudine was strong enough, she was to go there with Edna, to find it all prepared for her. This plan had touched her, she had thanked him with tears in her eyes. He would have gone there with them, if it had been suggested....
“What’s this?” asked Andrée.
He roused himself from his unpleasant meditation, and turned to look at the object she held in her hand.
“That? It’s a game—‘Pigs in Clover.’ I remember your mother was very much amused with it when she was first married.”
Andrée smiled and began to manipulate it, singing again.
Now Gilbert had been brought up to distrust happiness, especially feminine happiness. His mother had never been happy. Claudine was never happy; the only permissible thing in that line was the benevolent, and possibly alcoholically stimulated, high spirits of the pater familias, coming home bearing gifts. He loved Andrée, he was delighted to have the pretty, wilful creature about him again, but still, he could not help distrusting such gaiety.
“When do you expect to go home?” he asked.
“This is home!” said Andrée.
“Your home is with your husband, young lady!” he said, severely.
“I know! I’m going—pretty soon.”
There wasn’t the slightest need or reason for staying another hour. She had been there for four weeks, and her mother was now well on the road to recovery. Al telephoned every day, first he asked about Claudine, whose illness he had taken terribly to heart, and then he always said—
“When are you coming home, old girl?”
And she always answered “In a day or so.”
“You know your old father likes nothing better than to have his girl at home,” Gilbert went on. “But you’re a married woman, and you have to think of your duty.”
“I do think of it. But not all the time.... I think I’ll run up and see if Mother’s dressed.”
She had started up the stairs, when the telephone rang, and she ran back to answer it. She was quite sure it would be Al; this was his regular hour.
His voice responded.
“Mrs. Stephens in?”
“This is Andrée!” she answered, brightly. “How are you, Alfred?”
“Your mother doing well?”
And then, instead of his usual query, he said—
“It’s about time you were coming home, isn’t it?”
His voice was somewhat alarming, and she answered in her very pleasantest manner.
“Yes; I’m coming in a day or two, Al.”
“Suppose you come this evening?”
“Oh, I couldn’t! Not possibly!”
“Why not? I’ll come for you about eight.”
“No, Al, it’s not possible. My things aren’t packed.”
“Edna can pack them and send them after you to-morrow.”
“But how ridiculous! Why should I rush off like this?”
“Well,” he said slowly. “Suppose—because I particularly ask you to—?”
“You’re very unreasonable!”
“Humour me, then, for once.”
“No, Al!” she said, firmly. “I can’t come to-night. To-morrow—or the next day—I’ll let you know—”
“Look here, Andrée; I’m coming for you to-night!”
“But I tell you I’m not going home!”
“I insist!”
She laughed.
“What in the world is the matter with you, my dear boy? Do you imagine you can bully me?”
“I don’t want to. I’m asking you—to do me a favour.”
“It’s a ridiculous, selfish, unreasonable favour, and I shan’t do it.”
“I’m coming for you just the same, at eight o’clock!” he said.
She was going to remonstrate with him, but she found that he had left the telephone. Her cheeks flushed, and she bit her lip.
“Little beast!” she said to herself. But some secret thought made her unusually indulgent, she shrugged her shoulders and dismissed the thought of him.
She went on up to her mother’s room and knocked at the door.
“It’s Andrée!” she announced in her triumphal voice, as if that name were a talisman to admit her anywhere.
Claudine was sitting at her dressing-table, brushing her hair. There was grey in it now, on the temples, and her face was thin and drawn. She wore a negligée with high collar and long sleeves, to conceal the pitiful emaciation of her neck and arms. Andrée couldn’t look at her without a twinge of pain.
“I’ll do your hair for you, darling!” she said, and Claudine willingly relinquished the brush to her.
“I am some use to you, aren’t I, Mother?”
“I don’t know what I should have done without you, dear!”
“‘Should have done!’ Then you don’t need me now?”
“You know how dearly I love to have you with me, but—”
“But I ought to go home? I’m not useful any more, and I’m not wanted—”
“Don’t be so unreasonable, my dear! It’s only that I think it unfair to Alfred—”
“Why?” she demanded, impatiently.
“You shouldn’t stay away from him.”
“Why not? He’s always saying he wants me to feel free. He certainly shouldn’t object to my taking a little holiday.”
“And you ought to be at your work again.”
“I can practice here for Doctor Jaas. The Conservatory can wait.”
“You ought to go home!” her mother repeated.
Andrée frowned.
“Al’s just been telephoning, to ‘insist’ upon my coming home this evening. I suppose you think he’s right?”
“Yes.”
“You mean you’d like me to rush off like that?”
“Yes, I should.”
“I shan’t!” said Andrée. “I don’t suppose you’ll mind my waiting until to-morrow to pack my things?”
“If I were you, I should go with Alfred this evening—”
“I wouldn’t for anything! Just give in to his silly whim—”
“It’s not a silly whim.... Andrée.... I wrote to him.”
Andrée stared at her mother’s reflection in the glass.
“What!” she cried.
Claudine opened the drawer of the dressing-table and looked into it.
“I thought—the sooner you went home, the better,” she said, in a low voice.
Andrée did not ask why. She understood very well.