Mrs. Heth, stirring a little on the bed, said, with difficulty: "The Associated Charities met to elect new officers. I am--omitted from the board." She added, in a voice from which she could not keep the self-pity: "I should naturally--have been president this year."
Her crushed mildness touched Carlisle abruptly. For the first time in all this trouble, perhaps for the first time in her life, she had a considerate and sympathetic thought for her mother. It was mamma, it seemed, upon whom the reprisals of society were to fall most heavily, yet it was she, Cally, who had caused it all. Suppose she had been a good daughter, to begin with; suppose she had even been an obedient daughter, and had kept her own counsel, as mamma had commanded and implored. Ah, how different would have been this ghastly summer!...
She walked over to the bed, quite pale, put her hand on her mother's rumpled hair, and said with some agitation:
"I'm very sorry to have given you all this trouble, mamma."
Mrs. Heth looked up at her, her small eyes winking.
"Oh--I--I'm sure you meant to do what you thought was right. But--oh, Cally!..."
And then she was weeping in her daughter's arms.
Perhaps the stout little lady was ready now for a reconciliation. Perhaps the strain of silent censoriousness had worn out even her strong will. Perhaps, in some far cranny of her practical heart, there was a spark which secretly admired Cally for her suicidal madness. At any rate, drying her eyes presently, she said:
"How Mary Page will gloat over this.... Well, we can't go on this way, my child. We'll die if we don't have some diversion. Lord knows we'll need all our strength for the fall."
And still later, she suddenly cried: "LET'S GO TO PARIS!"