Jean came to a halt again in the middle of the room.
"Now, Jean Norris, from now on you're going to face things as they are. You are not going to ignore the existence of his wife, or of Puck. You're either going to—or quit."
But the idea of quitting was so ridiculous that Jean laughed out loud.
At the end of the week she wrote a long, cheerful letter to Gregory and went to have dinner with Mary.
Gregory answered by return mail. He said he was working on the plans, which were getting along, but he was so sick of them he didn't know whether they were good or bad. He never mentioned the country nor how he passed his time when he was not working. Only at the very end there was a line clear across the paper of extremely thin and wobbly columns, under which he had printed: "These are the other boarders. Christian Scientists."
Jean kissed the letter and tore it up. "I don't want to take to 'carrying it in my bosom.'"
A week later Jean came home early one night, after a cheerful evening with Mary, to find Martha quietly mending under the lamp.
"Why, mummy Norris!" Jean took Martha's sewing and laid it on the table. Squatting on her heels, she grinned with mock reproof. "Why, Mrs. Norris, may I ask? Did I tell you you could come home?"
Martha's eyes twinkled. "You may be a very important person in the outside world, Jeany, but you're my baby yet, and I think I'll come and go a few years longer without asking permission. Besides, Pat is all right and has a thousand times more sense than you have and is far better able to look out for herself." Martha pointed to the mending on the table.
"It's not inability, mummy, it's a question of belief. It's an economic principle. Why should I mend stockings when I ought to be resting my mammoth brain for further world efforts? And if I could make you understand, think of the extra pennies some poor woman might earn."