“Don’t worry, mother, things will turn out all right,” she now said reassuringly. “Of course it is pretty hard on Polly. Even I appreciate that. But it is silly of her to protest against the inevitable. She will save herself a lot of strength if she only finds that out some day. But I’ll leave you together, since my being here only makes her more obstinate than ever.”
As Sylvia was crossing the floor a sofa cushion was thrown violently at her from the apparently grief-stricken figure on the sofa. But while Mrs. Wharton looked both grieved and shocked Sylvia only laughed. Was there ever such another girl as her step-sister? Here she was at one instant weeping bitterly at the wrecking of her career, as she thought, and the next shying sofa cushions like a naughty child.
Once Sylvia was safely out of the way, Polly again sat upright on the sofa, drawing her mother down beside her. It was just as well that Sylvia had departed, for she was the one person in the world whom Polly had never been able to influence, or turn from her own point of view, by any amount of argument or persuasion. With her mother alone her task would be easier. Nevertheless Mrs. Wharton appeared singularly determined and Polly remembered that there had been occasions when her mother’s decision must be obeyed.
However, she was no longer a child, and although it would make her extremely miserable to appear both obstinate and unloving, it might in this single instance be absolutely necessary. How much had she not already endured to gain this slight footing in her profession? Now to turn her back on it in the midst of her first success, because a few persons had made up their minds that she was ill,—well, any sensible or reasonable human being must understand that it was quite out of the question.
So the discussion continued between the woman and girl, the same arguments being repeated over and over, the same pleading, and yet without arriving at any sort of conclusion. There is no knowing how long this might have kept up if there had not come a sudden knocking at the door.
Opening it the boy outside handed Mrs. Wharton a card.
“It is Mr. Hunt who has come to see you, Polly; shall I say you are not well? Or what shall I say? Of course it is out of the question for you to see any stranger, child. You have been crying until your face is swollen and your hair is in dreadful confusion,” Mrs. Wharton protested anxiously.
Polly unexpectedly scrambled to her feet. “Ask Mr. Hunt to wait a few minutes, please, mother, and then we will telephone down and tell him to come up. You see I had an engagement with him this afternoon and don’t like to refuse to see him. For once it is a good thing I have no pretensions to beauty like Betty and Mollie. Moreover, mother, I am obliged to confess to you that Mr. Hunt has seen me before, not only after I had been weeping, but while I was engaged in the act. You know he was about the only friend I saw all last winter, when I was so blue and discouraged with life. Besides, I am sure he will understand my point of view in this dreadful discussion we have just been having and will help me to convince you.”
Five minutes afterwards the celebrated Miss Polly O’Neill had restored her hair and costume to some semblance of order, although her eyes were still somewhat red and heavy, as well as her nose. Nevertheless she greeted her visitor without particular embarrassment. Mrs. Wharton, however, could not pull herself together so readily; so after a few moments of conventional conversation she asked to be excused and went away, leaving her daughter and guest alone.
Fifteen minutes passed, half an hour, finally an entire hour. All this while Mrs. Wharton, remaining in her daughter’s bedroom which adjoined the sitting room, could hear the sound of two voices.