"Get out your fiddle and play the Grieg Danse Caprice, with us," was her reply, and Louis obeyed, though not without a word or two more in her ear which made her lift her bow threateningly. Presently the trio were off, playing with a spirit and dash which drew all ears, and at the close of the Danse hearty applause called for more. After this diversion, naturally enough, new subjects came up for discussion.
Returning to the living-room in search of a dropped letter, after the family had dispersed for the night, Roberta found her mother lingering there alone. She had drawn a low chair close to the fire, and, having extinguished all other lights, was sitting quietly looking into the still glowing embers. Roberta, forgetting her quest, came close, and flinging a cushion at her mother's knee dropped down there. This was a frequent happening, and the most intimate hours the two spent together were after this fashion.
There was no speech for a little, though Mrs. Gray's hand wandered caressingly about her daughter's neck in a way Roberta dearly loved, drawing the loosened dark locks away from the small ears, or twisting a curly strand about her fingers. Suddenly the girl burst out:
"Mother, what are you to do when you find all your theories upset?"
"All upset?" repeated Mrs. Gray, in her rich and quiet voice. "That would be a calamity indeed. Surely there must be one or two of yours remaining stable?"
"It seems not, just now. One disproved overturns another. They all hinge on one another—at least mine do."
"Perhaps not as closely as you think. What is it, dear? Can you tell me anything about it?"
"Not much, I'm afraid. Oh, it's nothing very real, I suppose—just a sort of vague discomfort at feeling that certain ideals I thought were as fixed as the stars in the heavens seem to be wobbling as if they might shoot downward any minute, and—and leave only a trail of light behind!"
The last words came on a note of rather shaky laughter. Roberta's arm lay across her mother's knee, her head upon it. She turned her head downward for an instant, burying her face in the angle of her arm. Mrs. Gray regarded the mass of dark locks beneath her hand with a look amused yet sympathetic.
"That sort of discomfort attacks us all, at times," she said. "Ideals change and develop with our growth. One would not want the same ones to serve her all her life."