“Yes, that’s it,” she said.
“What a pity! I hoped you wouldn’t mind. You appeared not to at first. One hoped you would get used to it before it got on your nerves. Can’t you put it away, wrap it up and put it away?”
“Do you suppose I keep it in front of me for fun?” she asked. “Oh, Jim, is it beastly of me to tell you? There’s really no one else to tell. I couldn’t tell mother because she’s—well, she’s not very helpful about that sort of thing, and talks about true nobility being the really important thing, that and truth and honour and kindness. That is such parrot-talk, you know; it is just repeating what we have all heard a million of times. No doubt it is true, but what if one can’t realize it? I used always to suppose Shakespeare was a great author, till I saw ‘Hamlet,’ which bored me. And I had to tell somebody. What am I to do?”
“Why, apply to Claude what you’ve been saying about Mr. Osborne,” said he. “There are things about him which are dreadful unless you tell yourself they are funny. Well, tell yourself they are funny. I hope they are. Won’t that help?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps it might. But there are things that are funny at a little distance which cease to amuse when they come quite close. Uncle Alf made me think that the humorous solution would solve everything. But it doesn’t really; it only solves the things that don’t really matter.”
Dora dined quietly at home that night with Mr. and Mrs. Osborne and Claude, and after dinner had a talk to her mother-in-law while the other two lingered in the dining room.
“Why, it was like seeing a fire through the window to welcome you when you got home of a cold evening,” said Mrs. Osborne cordially, “to see your face at the head of the stairs, my dear. Mr. Osborne’s been wondering all the way up whether you and Claude would be dining at home to-night. Bless you, if he’s said it once he’s said it fifty times.”
“I love being wanted,” said Dora quickly.
“Well, it’s wanted that you are, by him and me and everyone else. And, my dear, I’m glad to think you’ll be by my elbow at all my parties, to help me, and say who’s who. And we lead off to-morrow with a big dinner. There’s thirty to table and a reception after, just to let it be known as how the house is open again, and all and sundry will be welcome. Of course, you’ll have your own engagements as well, my dear, and many of them, I’m sure, and no wonder, and there’s nothing I wish less than to stand in the way of them, but whenever you’ve an evening to spare, you give a thought to me, and say to yourself, ‘Well, if I’m wanted nowhere else, there’s mother’ll be looking out for me at the head of the stairs.’”
Dora laughed.