The impudence of it! Their house, their home; and this newcomer into the family—a newcomer from nowhere—trying to get it away from them! "Mother said something about it," said Adelaide frostily. "But she didn't say you had been at her. I think she ought to be left alone in her old age."
"The main thing is to keep her interested in life, don't you think?" suggested Madelene, noting how Adelaide was holding herself in check, but disregarding it. "Your mother's a plain, natural person and never has felt at home in that big house. Indeed, I don't think any human being ever does feel at home in a big house. There was a time when they fitted in with the order of things; but now they've become silly, it seems to me, except for public purposes. When we all get sensible and go in for being somebody instead of for showing off, we'll live in convenient, comfortable, really tasteful and individual houses and have big buildings only for general use."
"I'm afraid the world will never grow up into your ideals, Madelene," said Del with restrained irony. "At least not in our day."
"I'm in no hurry," replied Madelene good-naturedly. "The most satisfactory thing about common sense is that one can act on it without waiting for others to get round to it. But we weren't talking of those who would rather be ignorantly envied than intelligently happy. We were talking of your mother."
"Mother was content with her mode of life until you put these 'advanced' ideas into her head."
"'Advanced' is hardly the word," said Madelene. "They used to be her ideas—always have been, underneath. If it weren't that she is afraid of hurting your feelings, she'd not hesitate an instant. She'd take the small house across the way and give herself the happiness of helping with the hospital she'd install in the big house. You know she always had a passion for waiting on people. Here's her chance to gratify it to good purpose. Why should she let the fact that she has money enough not to have to work stand between her and happy usefulness?"
"What does Arthur think?" asked Del. Her resentment was subsiding in spite of her determined efforts to keep it glowing; Madelene knew the secret of manner that enables one to be habitually right without giving others the sense of being put irritatingly in the wrong. "But," smiling, "I needn't inquire. Of course he assents to whatever you say."
"You know Arthur better than that," replied Madelene, with no trace of resentment. She had realized from the beginning of the conversation that Del's nerves were on edge; her color, alternately rising and fading, and her eyes, now sparkling now dull, could only mean fever from a tempest of secret emotion. "He and I usually agree simply because we see things in about the same light."
"You furnish the light," teased Adelaide.
"That was in part so at first," admitted her sister-in-law. "Arthur had got many foolish notions in his head through accepting thoughtlessly the ideas of the people he traveled with. But, once he let his good sense get the upper hand—He helps me now far more than I help him."