It was my place in the trio to voice the sentiments of that staid and unadventurous middle class, which is described as “the backbone of the country.”
“Singers don’t want homes,” said Lizzie, “they’re in the way.”
“It must have been love,” I said in an awed voice. “Nothing else could explain it.”
For a moment we were silent, each deflecting her glance from the other to an adjacent object. I don’t know why it should have been, but Mrs. Stregazzi’s reckless act seemed to have depressed us. Any one coming into the room would have said we had had bad news.
Miss Bliss broke the spell, emerging from depths of thought in which she had been evolving a working hypothesis.
“I don’t see why it is so strange,” she said ponderingly.
“You don’t?”—the backbone of a country in which all men are free and equal does not bend readily—“with that disparity and he just beginning his career?”
“No, I don’t.” She was sitting cross-legged, holding an ankle in each hand and rocking gently. “I’ll tell you just what I think—I believe they were lonely. Lots of people get married because they’re lonely.”
“She had a mother and two children.”
“She took care of them, they weren’t companions. Berwick’s a companion, likes what she does and works at the same thing. It’s great to have a person like that around.” She nodded, with shrewd eyes shifting from one face to the other. “I’ve seen a lot and I’ve noticed. All sorts of people get married, and it comes out right. It’s not just the young ones and suitable ones that pull it off. It’ll be fine for Mrs. Stregazzi to have him to go round with, and it’ll be fine for him to have her to think about and talk things over with.”