“Are you going to marry him?” she asked.
“No, of course not.”
“I should be satisfied, if he is as fine as you say he is. I would rather see you married before I die, Irene.”
The daughter shook her head stubbornly. “I shall never marry any one.”
The old woman smiled shrewdly. “You are wrong, my girl. You are wrong. I haven’t had a very happy time, but I wouldn’t have given it up. It is a part of life, knowing love and having children.... Love can be so many things, but at least it is part of life ... the greatest part of all. Without it life is nothing.”
For a long time Irene remained silent. She kept her eyes cast down and when she spoke again it was without raising them. “But Lily ...” she began shrewdly. “She has never married.” It was the old retort, always Lily. Her mother saw fit to ignore it, perhaps because, knowing what she knew, it was impossible to answer it.
“You’ve been seeing a great deal of this Krylenko,” she said. “It’s been going on for years ... since before Lily was here the last time. That’s years ago.”
Irene looked up suddenly and a glint of anger lighted her pale eyes. “Who’s been talking to you about me?... I know. It’s Cousin Hattie. She was here to-day. Oh, why can’t people let me alone? I harm no one. I want to be left in peace.”
Then Julia Shane, perhaps because she already knew too well the antipathy between her coldly virginal daughter and her niece whose whole life was her children, deliberately lied.
“Cousin Hattie did not even mention it.” She turned her eyes away from the light. “I would like to see you married, Irene,” she repeated. It was clear that for some reason the old hope, forgotten since that tumultuous visit of the Governor, was revived again. It occupied the old woman’s mind to the exclusion of all else.