Even dear Mrs. Bradley took it for granted that she might be quite satisfied to make a career out of her own country.
“I hope I shall marry when I go back to Maman,” said Alix.
“Now isn’t she altogether too priceless, Mummy!” cried Rosemary. “One would have thought that with all the time you’ve been in England, Alix, you’d have got over those French ideas about marriage.—I suppose you’ll actually say that you’d let your mother choose a husband for you.”
“But who would choose one so well?” said Alix. Yet it was not true; it was not true that she still believed this of Maman. England had already changed her so much. But she did not intend that Rosemary should guess it.
“Who would? Why, you yourself!” cried Rosemary. “What can your mother know about it? Aren’t you an individual with your own tastes and feelings? And do you seriously think marriage the only career for a woman?—Do you really think getting married the whole meaning of life?”
“It is a sad thing to be a vieille fille, I think,” said Alix.
“Sad? Why sad? You don’t call Aunt Bella sad, do you? And there’re thousands and thousands more like her. All of ’em as jolly as possible; the unmarried people nowadays. Jollier than the married ones, I think;—and no wonder.”
“In their hearts, you may be sure, they wish they did not have to be quite so jolly,” Alix demurred. “They must feel it sad when they reflect that they have only other people’s children to care for—and those not the most interesting. And it must be sad to be alone at one’s foyer.”
“One may have one’s own children and yet have to take care of the others, too, you know, Alix,” Mrs. Bradley smiled, finishing her tea and taking up a packet of case papers. “All these are other people’s children.”
“One needn’t care for one’s own, or for other people’s unless one wants to,” Rosemary commented. “People specialize nowadays and know that some women are maternal and some aren’t. I’m sure I’m not. I couldn’t be bothered with children, or with a husband either—It’s as good as a play to hear you talk, you know, Alix—all your quaint French ideas. What can one hope of a nation that still has them!—Cradles, hearthstones, hubby’s socks to mend;—that’s what really appeals to you, I suppose.”