"I understand now why they couldn't afford to pay your father his forty-five a week. It must cost a great deal of money to keep this establishment going."
"Oh, momma," Gussie pleaded, "don't begin to hang crape just when we're able to enjoy ourselves a little."
Lizzie turned on her daughter her rare and almost forgotten smile.
"Very well, dear; enjoy yourself. Only a world in which enjoyment must be bought at such a price is not a fit world for human beings to live in."
Gladys crept up, snuggling against her mother's shoulder.
"Yes, momma darling; but you won't say that any more till we get home, now will you? It might hurt poor Bob's feelings if you did, and you can't say that he's ever done us any harm."
[CHAPTER XXV]
On the day after the visit to Collingham Lodge, Bob left for the camp in the Adirondacks. As yet he had no knowledge of the family's attitude toward him more exact than he could infer. He had written to them all since his return, but their replies, even Edith's, had been noncommittal. He guessed that they had decided together not to express themselves fully till they came face to face with him.
Even then, the approach to his own affairs was indirect. An affectionate family reunion, based seemingly on the ground that nothing had happened when so much had, blocked the openings for bringing up the subjects he had most at heart. During the early part of that first evening at Sugar Maple Point he couldn't get anyone alone. Not till nearly bedtime did he himself offer a lead by strolling out into the moonlight in the hope that one of the three would follow him.
It was full moonlight, turning Sugar Maple Lake into a sheet of silver and gold laid at the base of a velvety silhouette of mountains. The magic of stillness, the tang of the forest, the repose of the spirit from the girding and striving of the world—these lovelinesses came to Bob Collingham with a peace such as they always brought, but which to-night couldn't find a resting place. It couldn't find a resting place because in this tranquil woodland more than anywhere else he found himself wishing that Teddy Follett wasn't in a cell.