Jack at this was, perforce, silent. No, he couldn't altogether deny it, and though it did not seem to him a particularly relevant truth he could but own that to Imogen it might well appear so. He did not answer her, and there the incident seemed to end. But it left them both with the sense of frustrated hope, and over and above that Jack had felt, sharper than ever before, the old shoot of weariness for "papa" as the touchstone for such vexed questions.
XIII
Mrs. Upton expressed no displeasure, although she could not control surprise, when she was informed of Imogen's change of decision, and Jack, watching her as usual, felt bound, after the little scene of her quiet acquiescence, to return with Imogen, for a moment, to the subject of their dispute. Imogen had asked him to help her to see and however hopeless he might feel of any fundamental seeing on her part, he mustn't abandon hope while there was a stone unturned.
"That's what it really was," he said to her. "You do see, don't you?—to respond to whatever she felt you wanted."
Imogen stared a little. "Of what are you talking, Jack?"
"Of your mother Antigone—the black edge. It wasn't the black edge."
She had understood in a moment and was all there, as fully equipped with forbearing opposition as ever.
"It wasn't even the black edge, you mean? Even that homage to his memory was unreal?"
"Of course not. I mean that she wanted to do what you wanted."
"And does she think, do you think, it's that I want,—a suave adaptation to ideals she doesn't even understand? No doubt she attributes my change to girlish vanity, the wish to shine among the others. If that was what I wanted, that would be what she would want, too."