"But what is it that you want, Alex? What would make you happy?" her mother broke in, piteously enough.
In the face of their perplexity, Alex lost the last feeble clue to her own complexity. She did not know what she wanted—to make them happy, to be happy herself, to be adored and admired and radiantly successful, never to know loneliness, or misunderstanding again—such thoughts surged chaotically through her mind as she stood there sobbing, and could find no words except the childish foolish formula, "I don't know."
She saw Barbara's eager, protesting gaze flash upon her, and heard her half-stifled exclamation of wondering contempt. Sir Francis turned to his younger daughter, almost as though seeking elucidation from her obvious certainties—her crude assurance with life.
"Oh!" said little Barbara, her hands clenched, "they ask you what you want, what would make you happy—they are practically offering you anything you want in the world—you could choose anything, and you stand there and cry and say you don't know! Oh, Alex—you—you idiot!"
"Hush!" said Sir Francis, shocked, and Lady Isabel put out her white hand with its glittering weight of rings and laid it gently on Barbara's shoulder, and she too said, "Hush, darling! why are you so vehement? You're happy, aren't you, Barbara?"
"Of course," said Barbara, wriggling. "Only if you and father asked me what I would like, and I had only to say what I wanted, I could think of such millions of things—for us to have a house in the country, and to give a real, proper big ball next year, and for you to let me go to restaurant dinners sometimes, and not only those dull parties and—heaps of things like that. It's such an opportunity, and Alex is wasting it all! The only thing she wants is to sit and talk and talk and talk with some dull old nun at that convent!"
Long afterwards Alex was to remember and ponder over again and again that denunciation of Barbara's. It was all fact—was it all true? Was that what she was fighting for—that the goal of her vehement, inchoate rebellion? Had she sought in Mother Gertrude's society the relief of self-expression only, or was her infatuation for the nun the channel through which she hoped to find those abstract possessions of the spirit which might constitute the happiness she craved?
Nothing of all the questionings that were to come later invaded her mind, as she stood sobbing and self-convicted at the crises of her relations with her childhood's home.
"Don't cry so, Alex darlin'." Lady Isabel sank back into her armchair. "Don't cry like that—it's so bad for you and I can't bear it. We only want to know how we can make you happier than you are. It's so dreadful, Alex—you've got everything, I should have thought—a home, and parents who love you—it isn't every girl that has a father like yours, some of them care nothing for their daughters—and you're young and pretty and with good health—you might have such a perfect time, even if you have made a mistake, poor little thing, there'll be other people, Alex—you'll know better another time ... only I can't bear it if you lose all your looks by frettin' and refusin' to go anywhere, and every one asks me where my eldest daughter is and why she doesn't make more friends, and enjoy things—" Lady Isabel's voice trailed away. She looked unutterably tired. They had none of them heard so emotional a ring in her voice ever before.
Sir Francis looked down at his wife in silence, and his gaze was as tender as his voice was stern when he finally spoke.