"He is not. He is having far too much fun stirring things up in Norton, Pa. We are going in for politics. I think I shall let him run for mayor. There will be a lovely row, for all the crocks are afraid of him now, and it isn't a circumstance to what they'll be if they suspect he wants to raise that particular tempest in their cozy, grafty teapot." Suzanne chuckled, scenting battle afar off. A "scrap" was as the elixir of life to her. "I don't want to live in New York, anyway," she continued. "I couldn't bear to be very far off from mother, and it's much more distinguished to draw my royalties and breath on some sacred Parnassian Hill in Norton, Pa. Likewise it is less expensive. I shall come up often, however, if only to see that they do not murder my precious play. Vengeance is mine if they touch one hair--that is, one line--of its blessed substance. Remember my prophecy, sweet friends? I-did-write-a-play." And, lacking a cushion, Suzanne thumped the tea table with her fist until the cups rattled ominously.
"You did," agreed Sylvia. "And here is Barbie here, an ornament to the Cause. Wait until you see her marching in the parade next fall! Wait till you know what she did to the legislators when she bearded them at Albany! She is so modest she will hide her light under a bushel, but I'm all the time hearing things about her. Phil says she's a wonderful speechifier. To the victor--in her own colors!" And Sylvia dropped the yellow jonquils she was wearing in her friend's lap and bent over her to press a butterfly kiss on her forehead.
Sylvia and Barb had come very close to each other during the latter's recent stay in the city. Phil Lorrimer's accident had been a fiery ordeal for Barbara as well as Sylvia, and Sylvia, guessing this, felt very tender toward the other girl. Never once did they reach the point of putting things into words. But words were not essential to mutual understanding. Barb and Sylvia knew all there was to know, each about the other, without communication on the subject and their love was the stronger for knowing. Perhaps the closest Barbara ever came to a confession was when she said to Sylvia once that she didn't believe there was a single woman who was a really inspired worker in the Cause who hadn't a hurt of her own somewhere underneath to make her pitiful of scars other women carried. "I guess maybe they are even thankful for their hurts when they have healed a little," she had added with Barb-like naïveté. "It makes them understand so much more. You've got to understand to care."
And Sylvia had understood and cared so much for Barbara's hurt that she would not offer her the last spear thrust--the word of spoken compassion. And, after all, Sylvia could hardly help seeing that Barb scarcely needed compassion. She, too, had her Grail fire to follow and it took her to high places.
"Oh, Barb is some little wonder!" Suzanne had agreed. "Isn't it funny how much we've all been through since September and yet we aren't any of us so cock-sure about things as we were then? I was the worst--the most Sophomoric of the three--and maybe I've come the worst croppers just because I had to have the cock-sureness forcibly if not painlessly extracted. Anyway, I don't want to go back and be the Suzanne of September, nineteen hundred and fourteen again. What about the rest of you? Would you like old Time to turn back in his flight?"
"No," said Sylvia and Barb in emphatic chorus. Then they all laughed and grew sober.
"It is a vote," declared Suzanne.
When Sylvia got back to her hotel she found a message from Jeanette Latham inviting her to dinner. A little reluctantly she telephoned acceptance. She was not very anxious to see Jeanette, not only because she had rather distasteful memories of her recent visit but because she dreaded meeting any of Jack's people just now. It seemed to her they must dislike and despise her for her treatment of Jack. Not that she blamed them for that. No one could judge her more harshly than she judged herself on that score.
Arrived at the great house on the drive, Sylvia was informed that Mrs. Latham was in her own room and begged that Miss Arden would come up. The two kissed and then drew back each surveying the other woman fashion, out of the tail of her eye.
Jeanette was a little pale, Sylvia thought, but somehow prettier than she had been in December, her rich brunette glow softened and subdued a little. She was wearing an exquisite rose-colored robe above which her lovely full throat gleamed white and her eyes looked darker and more brilliant than ever.