"Your father said we had better meet Cousin Arthur," said her mother.
That was the remorseless end and beginning to everything. "Your father said" meant days and weeks and years of drab colour.
"Oh, let us go then," said Elsie. There was a drowning hopelessness in her voice, so great an emptiness that it was hard to believe she had merely used the words--"Let us go then."
Her mother accepted the answer without the sigh which burned in her heart because it had no outlet.
They proceeded to get ready to go out.
Mrs. Leighton and Betty by this time were chatting easily enough at the Merediths'. Mrs. Leighton had the feeling of an inexperienced general after a very indefinite victory.
"I do not possess the talent of inflicting myself gracefully on people," she said, "and the child is quite extraordinary. However, I liked the mother; she is a dear little woman."
Miss Meredith was only partially interested.
She arranged to walk home with them, and they set out in rather a slow manner.
"I can quite believe the child would be different in other surroundings," said Mrs. Leighton. "What a fine-looking man!" The one remark ran into the other automatically. In later days it seemed prophetic that the two people should be mentioned in one breath.