On Sundays, Jean took long walks, most often alone, sometimes with Nan when she could not refuse. But at forty-two, freed from dependent relatives for the first time in her life, Nan had an excited childish exuberance about her that rather bored Jean. She often wanted to urge Nan to snatch at life before it was too late, grasp some reality besides her love and admiration for the clumsy, capering Philip. But when she thought about it seriously, she did not know what it was she would urge Nan to snatch. The knowledge and disillusion of experience, where now Nan had curiosity and, perhaps, hope?
Catherine, Jean rarely saw except at meals, and Beth's engagements with men, mostly younger than herself, kept her away a great deal. But, on the few evenings that Jean was home, it came to be the custom for Gerte to drop in to the attic. And no matter what the subject, Gerte soon led it to her own work, burbling on about her plots, clothing the meager incidents in long words. Jean often wondered why Gerte wrote or how she sold what she did, she had so little insight, no imagination, and was so empty of any deep experience of her own. At thirty-two, Gerte was pitifully curious about love and sex and marriage, and Jean was sure that she thought almost constantly about these things. She pitied Gerte but never quite liked her.
Twice Jean had dinner at the old Stuart farmhouse on Staten Island, and these evenings stood out from all other evenings in a warm glow. She and Jerome united to tease Alice, so sure of herself and so untried, but she was almost as glad as Jerome of the girl's indestructible optimism. Sometimes she and Jerome referred to it afterwards in the office, and this happy comradeship between the quiet man and the big, blonde girl, seemed to Jean one of the most beautiful things she had ever seen. It made her feel nearer to Jerome Stuart than the successful accomplishment of any plan and softened the resentment toward her own bleak girlhood. She often wondered how Jerome would stand the loneliness of Alice's marriage and sometimes, for a moment, Alice's going so eagerly out to the happiness Jerome's loving care had made possible, seemed cruelly selfish, until Jean thought of Martha and smiled. How imperceptibly one's viewpoint glided from youth to age, and how alike was all youth and how alike all age. In middle life the wandering paths of youth met, and when one reached that spot, one picked up the waiting burden of loneliness and understanding and staggered away with it, groaning or smiling according to one's pride. She rather thought that Jerome would smile.
Early in April she and Jerome began to plan a summer campaign against the cheap dance-halls and mediocre concerts on the piers that furnished the principal recreation of the poor in summer. Sometimes Jerome got quite violent about it.
"There's no reason there shouldn't be something worth while and we'll give it to them."
"We will that—whether they want it or not."
Jerome laughed. "When you take that tone you make me think of Alice planning Sidney's future. I always feel so heavy and masculine and unnecessary. You make me feel as if my greatest privilege will be to trail along behind such energy."
"And when you take that note, you make me feel flippant and feminine and superficial."
"Not a bit of it. You just feel Machiavellian and subtle. I know."
"Solomon! Well, no matter what your feelings are, you're not going to shift any responsibility because of them."