"But won't it ever end, mother? Just look at the difference—what happy Christmases we used to spend all together! And now there's no idea of our being together at all. Didn't you ask them to come here for Christmas?"
"Well, I didn't tell father, but I wrote to Auntie Eleanor and asked her if they would come if we did ask them. I thought it might bring us all together again. But of course it would have been worse if we had asked them and they had refused. She wrote very nicely, as she always does; but William had already made up his party, or some of it. I dare say what happened was that he found he could get somebody that he particularly wanted then, and asked the rest to meet him—or her, or them. I don't know. When people once begin to chase other people, for their names or their positions or whatever it is that attracts them, it—well, it becomes a habit. Other sociabilities have to give way to it."
This was rather painful to Pamela. "But Auntie Eleanor isn't like that, mother dear."
It was half a question. "No," said Mrs. Eldridge, quite decisively. "She and I have often talked that over. At least, we used to, before we settled it between us, for good and all. It simply isn't worth while to make friends with anybody for any other reason than because you like them for themselves, and not for what they've got. Now you're grown up, darling, I don't mind telling you that I was rather inclined at one time—oh, years and years ago—to want to get myself in everywhere. It's easy enough, if you have a certain position to begin with, and enough money. And I was quite good-looking, when I was first married, and—"
"You are now, mother darling," said Pamela, with a laugh: "but do go on."
"I don't say that there's not some fun to be got out of it," Mrs. Eldridge continued. "Of course I don't mean just the vulgar sort of climbing; but it's amusing to feel that you belong to everything, and people want—you, instead of your wanting them. Still, it's never worth while in the long run. Eleanor saw that quite clearly, from the beginning, and she made me see it. It's one of the things that I have to thank her for."
"Oh, mother, it's dreadful that you have to be apart now. Don't you feel it very much?"
"Of course I do. But not so much as I should have done a few years ago. You're grown up now, you see. Besides, I've got used to the quiet life. I don't really want anything else now, as long as one can live without too much anxiety. I only discovered that a short time ago. Eleanor was always preaching it to me; but now she's getting farther away from it herself, poor dear. I'm sorry for her."
Pamela's direct mind was apt to be a little puzzled by her mother. It was not always easy to recognize the source of her speeches, or whether she was serious or only amusing herself. "Do you mean that you're really sorry for her?" she asked. "I suppose she needn't get away from the sort of life she likes, if she doesn't want to."
"She can't help herself. She loves William. I love father, and I want what he wants. It's the same with her. But what he wants happens to be more satisfying than what William wants. It's only rather tiresome that just as I have discovered that for myself it's beginning to be difficult to have anything at all that one wants. I've been wanting to tell you something for some time, Pam darling, but I've put it off because I went on hoping that it might not be necessary. Don't tell the others yet, but I'm afraid it has to come. We can't afford to go on living here."