“Oh, these mothers!” he laughed, his face smoothing out into its usual guileless lines.
The music was over. The groups flowed past them toward the little tables in another picturesque room, and Lilla Gates swept by in a cluster of guffawing youths. She seemed to have attracted all the kindred spirits in the room, and her sluggish stare was shot with provocation. Ah, there was another mystery! No one explained Lilla—every one seemed to take her for granted. Not that it really mattered; Kate had seen enough of Anne to feel sure she would never be in danger of falling under Lilla’s influence. The perils in wait for her would wear a subtler form. But, as a matter of curiosity, and a possible light on the new America, Kate would have liked to know why her husband’s niece—surprising offshoot of the prudent Clephanes and stolid Drovers—had been singled out, in this new easy-going society, to be at once reproved and countenanced. Lilla in herself was too uninteresting to stimulate curiosity; but as a symptom she might prove enlightening. Only, here again, Kate had the sense that she, of all the world, was least in a position to ask questions. What if people should turn around and ask them about her? Since she had been living under her old roof, and at her daughter’s side, the mere suggestion made her tremble. It was curious—and she herself was aware of it—how quickly, unconsciously almost, she had slipped at last into the very attitude the Clephanes had so long tried to force upon her: the attitude of caution and conservatism.
Her glance, in following Lilla, caught Fred Landers’s, and he smiled again, but with a slight constraint. Instantly she thought: “He’d like to tell me her whole story, but he doesn’t dare, because very likely it began like my own. And it will always go on being like that: whatever I’m afraid to ask they’ll be equally afraid to tell.” Well, that was what people called “starting with a clean slate”, she supposed; would no one ever again scribble anything unguardedly on hers? She felt indescribably alone.
On the way home the mere feeling of Anne’s arm against hers drew her out of her solitariness. After all, she had only to wait. The new life was but a few weeks old; and already Anne’s nearness seemed to fill it. If only she could keep Anne near enough!
“Did you like it, mother? How do we all strike you, I wonder?” the girl asked suddenly.
“As kinder than anything I ever dreamed.”
She thought she felt Anne’s surprised glance in the darkness. “Oh, that! But why not? It’s you who must try to be kind to us. I feel as if we must be so hard to tell apart. In Europe there are more contrasts, I suppose. I saw Uncle Fred helping you to sort us out this evening.”
“You mean you caught me staring? I daresay I do. I want so much not to miss anything ... anything that’s a part of your life....” Her voice shook with the avowal.
She was answered by a closer pressure. “You wonderful mother! I don’t believe you ever will.” She was conscious in Anne, mysteriously, of a tension answering her own. “Isn’t it splendid to be two to talk things over?” the girl said joyously.
“What things?” Kate Clephane thought; but dared not speak. Her hand on Anne’s, she sat silent, feeling her child’s heart tremble nearer.