Before she could stop herself Mrs. Heyham had pulled her hand away. Rosemary promised to marry! At eighteen! Rosemary who had been so careless of love! The girl, anxiously listening, could read nothing but disappointment into her "My darling!"
For a moment they looked at each other. Then came the amends, that Mary was never slow to make. This time she took her daughter's hand in hers. "You know how fond I am of Anthony—it isn't that. But you—you're so young—how can you know—how can you possibly know?"
Rosemary found no words that would convince her. Instead she turned away from her mother's eyes and stared into the fire. It was not a thing one could talk about, how one knew.
Mary looked down at her bright young head. She loved it too dearly, she thought, she could not lose it! "Won't you wait—" she began, but then she checked herself. It was passion, not happiness, that she had wanted to keep from the child for a little longer.
But Rosemary had heard her cry and was answering it. "We have waited ever since the summer. I didn't want to hurt you, mother, but I couldn't bear that anyone should know. Tony wanted to tell you at once, but I wouldn't let him."
Mary did her best to smile. She could not speak—she was humiliated. She had never intruded herself on her children or forced the delicate privacies of their minds, but she had stood apart only, she thought, to watch and direct them better because they were not conscious of her attention. And now, for months, Rosemary had known these new intimacies of love while she had seen no further—that was what it amounted to—than her charming manners!
Rosemary, from the tight grasp of her hands, guessed at Mrs. Heyham's suffering. "Mother, dear, don't mind!" she begged her. "Why should you mind so much?"
Why should she mind?—For a moment Mary struggled with tears. Then she turned resolutely from her painful thoughts. "My darling," she said, "I'm selfish, thoroughly selfish! You mustn't let me spoil your happiness. It's nothing, my dear—only a foolish instinct. You see, I feel that as each of you goes it closes one of the windows of my life!"
Rosemary sighed a little with relief. Here was the matter on reasonable grounds where one could argue about it! She rather enjoyed discussing feelings, though she was shy of showing them. She relaxed her attitude, which had been a little strained, and started to make her point.
"But you haven't lost us, mother. We're still there, it's only that we're grown up. After all, having children is an experience, and you've got it there, so much to the good!"