“Have you a vase?” Mrs. Mortimer asked dubiously.
Mrs. Emery rose to the occasion. “The Japanese umbrella stand.”
There was a pause as they reverently arranged the great sheaf of enormous flowers. Then Mrs. Emery began, “Marietta—” She hesitated.
“Well,” Mrs. Mortimer prompted her, a little impatiently.
“Do you really think that he—that Lydia—?”
Marietta accepted with a somewhat pinched smile her mother’s boundary lines of reticence. “Of course. Did you ever know Paul Hollister to give up anything he wanted?”
Her mother shook her head.
Mrs. Mortimer rose with a “Well, then!” and the air of one who has said all there is to be said on a subject, and again crossed the room toward the door. Her mother drifted aimlessly in that direction also, as though swept along by the other’s energy.
“Well, it’s a pity he is not here now, anyhow,” she said, adding in a spirited answer to her daughter’s expression, “Now, you needn’t look that way, Marietta. You know yourself that Lydia is very romantic and fanciful. It would be a very different matter if she were like Madeleine Hollister. She wouldn’t need any managing.”
Mrs. Mortimer smiled at the idea. “Yes, I’d like to see somebody try to manage Paul’s sister,” she commented.