"I know. Jean was in the greatest state of excitement yesterday when she got your wire." Martha smiled and it made the small face, rested in the peace of the last six years, astonishingly young. But she could think of nothing else to say. There had always been something breathless about Dr. Mary's energy that made Martha feel inadequate. Something a little indecent, in an enthusiasm and exuberance that could carry a woman well over fifty across the continent, at a moment's notice, to study. It was almost as if she infringed on a younger generation, wore mental rouge and powder.
"It's a frightful journey, especially in this heat. You must be very tired."
Martha drew a chair to the window and Mary dropped gratefully into it.
"I'll just make a cup of tea and we'll have cold supper later."
She pattered out and Jean and Mary looked at each other and smiled.
When tea was ready they had it close to the window looking to the Palisades. Jean made valiant efforts to hold Martha in the talk but it kept drifting away from her, and soon she was sitting quietly to one side, as she always did, listening, while Jean and Mary talked and interrupted one another and made a thousand plans.
"I tell you, Jean, I was getting to be a big frog in a small puddle and that's not good for the soul. I'm not going to give a single scrap of advice to a living soul for three months at least."
Jean patted the plump shoulder. "Croak on, Mary, croak on. Why, you'll be taking the tenements out of my hands, if I don't step lively. Not to mention the garment strike and Rachael herself."
"Never. I wouldn't offer a suggestion for ten additional years of life. I'm going to sit to one side and watch."
"Mary MacLean, you'll sit to one side exactly as long as I'll let you—forty-eight hours perhaps to get rested. And then—Lord; I feel as if I had been asleep for years. Mary, this is going to be one glorious summer."