Not that Dolly was censorious. Her philosophy found refuge in fatalism. And since what is to be must be--especially where the Kimberlys were concerned--why worry over the complications? Seemliness, however, Dolly held, was to be regarded, and concerning this she felt she ought to be consulted. The way to be consulted she had long ago learned was to find fault.
But if she herself reproved Kimberly and Alice, Dolly allowed no one else to make their affairs a subject of comment. Lottie Nelson, who could never be wholly suppressed, was silenced when occasion offered. One afternoon at The Hickories, Alice's name being mentioned, Lottie asked whether Robert was still chasing her.
"Chasing her?" echoed Dolly contemptuously and ringing the changes on the objectionable word, "Of course; why shouldn't he chase her? Who else is there to chase? He loves the excitement of the hunt; and who else around here is there to hunt? The other women hunt him. No man wants anything that comes tumbling after him. What we want is what we can't get; or at least what we're not sure of getting."
Kimberly and Alice if not quite unconscious of comment were at least oblivious of it. They motored a great deal, always at their own will, and they accounted to no one for their excursions.
"They are just a pair of bad children," said Imogene to Dolly. "And they act like children."
One of their diversions in their rambling drives was to stop children and talk with them or ask questions of them. One day near Sunbury they encountered a puny, skeleton-faced boy, a highway acquaintance, wheeling himself along in an invalid chair.
They had never hitherto talked with this boy and they now stopped their car and backed up. Alice usually asked the questions. "I thought you lived away at the other end of the village, laddie?"
"Yes'm, I do."
"You haven't wheeled yourself all this way?"
"Yes'm."