And in spite of her denial, Sylvia couldn't help wondering if there were any truth in Suzanne's implications. She had accepted Stephen Kinnard quite simply as Felicia had explained him, an old friend and fellow artist of Paris days. He had been in Greendale nearly all summer doing some sketches of Southern gardens for a magazine, and it had seemed perfectly natural to Sylvia that he should come often up the hill to see Mrs. Emory. They were both artists and had much in common beside their old friendship. That any factors deeper than those which appeared on the surface might be keeping Stephen Kinnard in Felicia's proximity had not until the moment occurred to Sylvia. For a moment it flashed across her mind how sadly Arden Hall would fare without Felicia who with the dear "wonder babies" had come to help Sylvia keep Christmas nearly six years ago and had remained in the old house ever since to its young owner's infinite content and well being.
"I never thought of Felicia's marrying again," she said after a moment of silence.
"Well, Stephen Kinnard has thought of it, if you haven't," pronounced Suzanne. "By the way, he said a rather nice thing about you yesterday. He said you had a genius for happiness."
Sylvia smiled a little as her gaze strayed past the white pillars, past the giant magnolia-tree lifting its shining leaves to the sun, past the pink and white glory of cosmos and the dial beyond, dedicating itself discreetly to none but sunny hours; beyond still farther to the clear turquoise space of sky visible behind it all.
"Being happy isn't much of an art when you can't help being it," she said, her gaze and her thoughts coming back from their momentary journey.
"Oh, but he didn't mean just your being happy," put in Barb in her quick, serious way. "He meant your way of making other people happy. It's true. I noticed it often in college. But it is truer than ever here. Everybody in Arden Hall is happy. It is like Shakespeare's forest. It makes you feel different--not just only happy but better, being here."
"That is the house. It has been like that ever since I had my Christmas family here. Of course, it is realty mostly Felicia. She is the mainspring of it all. But we like to pretend there is something magic about the house itself. You don't know how I love every stick and brick of it. I have never had half enough of it. I have been in school so much, I've only snatched a few vacations on the wing, as it were, and even that only in the last few years since I captured Felicia. Ugh! Nobody knows how I hated those dreadful holidays in hotels after Aunt Nell died and I came to America. And nobody knows how I love this." Her expansive gesture made "this" include house and lawn and magnolia and pink and white bloom and sun dial and all the rest, perhaps even the turquoise stretch of sky. "I've never had my fill of homeness," she concluded.
"Funny!" mused Suzanne. "Now, I don't want to be at home at all. Norton is such a stuffy, snippy, gossipy, little town, and I loathe being officially the 'parson's daughter.' Sometimes it used to seem to me I'd rather throw myself in the river than go to another prayer meeting and hear Deacon Derby drone out minute instructions to the Lord as to how he should manage his business. And being home isn't so sweet and simple as it seems either. I adore my mother, but we don't see two things alike in the wide world. She likes the chairs stiff and straight against the walls, just in the same position year in, year out. I like 'em at casual experimental angles, different every day. That is typical of our two viewpoints. She likes things eternally straight and the same. I like 'em eternally on the bias and different. We can't either of us help it. We are made that way. And we're both more or less miserable, whether we give in or whether we don't. Mother and Dad are regular darlings, both of them, but I don't mean to stay at home with them a bit more than I can help. They don't need me. They are perfectly used to doing without me and are really much happier sans Suzanne. I just stir things up and they like to snuggle down in their nice comfortable ruts. I've got to live in New York. I'd smother in Norton, Pa."
"Roger doesn't seem to be smothering in Norton," Sylvia reminded her. "Jack stopped over to see him last week and he said Roger was stirring things up with a vengeance since he has been sitting among the city fathers."
"Oh, Roger!" Suzanne shrugged Roger away as entirely negligible. "Roger Minot would stir things up in a graveyard. He likes to live in a small town. I don't. The biggest city in the world isn't one bit too big for me. New York for mine. Better change your mind, Sylvia, and come on, too. There will be plenty of room in my garret. More room than anything else probably. Aunt Sarah's legacy has its limits, more's the pity. But come on and share my crust."