“Oh, very well!” Geraldine shrugged her shoulders meaningly, as she turned toward the door. “I regret exceedingly that you will not accept my well-meant offer of friendship. If you should need me any time, Elinor,” she called back, “you know where to find me—good-night.”
Marjorie stood still as a statue, waiting until she heard the door close after Mrs. DeLacy. Then she resumed her chair, pulled a low stool up beside her and tenderly seated Elinor upon it.
“Darling little girl,” she murmured soothingly, gently caressing the disordered hair which futile hands sought to arrange. “Come, tell mother everything. I—I’m not angry, dear—my heart is over-flowing with love and sympathy for you, and I want to help you!”
One upward glance the girl gave her mother. She shook her head sadly.
“Your love and your desire to help me, mother, have come too late.”
Marjorie caught her breath sharply.
“Oh, please! Please, dear, don’t say that!”
“You’ve kept me away from you so long,” Elinor continued apathetically, plaintively. “I have never been able to confide in you. The wonderful comradeship I’ve seen between other girls and their mothers—never existed between us. Your continual fault finding with everything I did forced me to be untruthful, and to deceive you.”
“I meant it all for your good, dear!” Marjorie’s voice vibrated with emotion. “You will believe me—you must!—when I tell you my only desire was for your happiness!”
“And Howard!” Elinor’s voice was bitter in its hysterical condemnation. “What right had he to judge anyone? Templeton would have married me, and now—my life is wrecked.”