She left an awed silence behind her.
“If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll go and talk to Mrs. Shepard a while,” said Bonnie May, not without significance. The atmosphere had become too rarefied for her. She was turning from an inimical clan. She was obeying that undying instinct which impelled the cavemen of old to get their backs toward a wall.
Baron, Sr., prepared to go out. He turned to Victor and Flora as he took his leave, and his whole being twinkled quietly. He seemed to be saying: “Don’t ask me!”
Flora stole up to her mother’s room. She tapped at the door affectionately—if one can tap at a door affectionately.
A voice muffled by pillows was heard. “Making hay,” it seemed to say. Flora frowned in perplexity. Then her brow cleared and she smiled wistfully. “Oh!” she interpreted, “‘Go away.’”
She went to Victor again.
“I suppose she’ll have to go,” she said, almost in a whisper.
“Oh, yes, certainly; yes, she’ll have to go,” agreed Victor firmly.
“And yet I can’t say it’s her fault.”
“You might say it’s her misfortune.”