"Oh, well. Manage her to suit yourself."
That was the most he could say. He could offer her no help. All she could ask of him was that he would refrain from interfering. But if Jim had been in Bob's place, Jim would have known what to do. Martha would have listened if Jim could have spoken to her. And Jim would have listened if Emily had gone to him in perplexity about the girl. Hadn't she and Jim sat together for hours discussing their children, enjoying them together, having them in common, almost, in spite of the barrier between them? Because Jim had always appreciated little Martha Kenworthy. That was the essential wrong Bob had done the child since birth. He had failed to appreciate her. He had never in his life understood a woman. He had never even given the proper value to his own mother. And Jim's adulterous wife he had simply cursed whenever he thought of her. It was only men that Bob could evaluate. There was no use expecting him to judge Martha fairly. But Jim had enjoyed every phase of her little girlhood, just as he had played tenderly, reverently with his mother's heroisms and weaknesses, just as he had so well understood every shade of the service Emily had unconsciously rendered him when she had loved his son. If Martha had a man like Jim about familiarly, she wouldn't be impressed as she seemed to be with the first pretentious masher that came her way. Jim would have set a standard for the child, given her a taste for masculine worth. And it all went back again to the old, old question: Why didn't I marry Jim in the first place? Why did I ever quarrel with him? Why was I brought up so that I could quarrel with him, about a book, merely a book that is this minute lying neglected on the shelf in the painted room because the girls were bored with old classics? I married Bob to get away from this house, said Emily. But Martha will never marry to get away from that, Emily vowed again.
Chapter Four
Afterwards, when Emily, thinking those summer weeks over, used to ask herself again and again why she hadn't prevented their climax, she could scarcely recall how her realization of the situation had come about. She had told Martha that she didn't want Eve's brother-in-law singling her out for his attention. She had supposed that was sufficient. She had gone with Martha to take the Wrights home the next day, and all very merrily the afternoon had gone, just as afternoons usually went before that man came rumbling on the horizon. There had been no mention of him till towards supper time. Martha's chum, Greta, had come in then, asking her to go for a swim. Emily liked Greta, with reservations and allowances, thinking her too pretty to be judged severely. She had dazzling eyes: light-blue eyes when she wore light blue; dark-blue eyes when she wore dark blue; gray eyes when she had on a gray suit; and when she pulled that wicked little mauve hat down over her forehead, her eyes were purple as dark pansies. One had to forgive that girl for somewhat too deliberately flashing those glances into male consciousness, Emily argued. But Greta didn't—quite tell the very truth—always. Just lately in a crisis she had told one tale, and Martha had told another of what happened, and it had all had to come out, Martha justified, a truthful child, and Greta—well, perhaps she had learned her lesson. Emily believed so.
Now that afternoon when she came in on her way to the beach, Martha was indiscreet, to say the least. She said demurely enough, when Greta urged her:
"Oh, I don't know whether I'm allowed to go swimming. Am I, mammie?"
Emily had asked innocently, "Why not?"
"Well, there's sure to be some married men about, some place." And Greta had smiled, as if she understood Martha's cause for complaint.
"Don't be silly!" Emily had replied. They had gone swimming. Afterwards Emily wondered if Martha had known that man would be there, if she had taken that way of warding off subsequent reproof. She wondered, but she could reach no conclusion. She could never make out clearly how it had gone on. She hadn't even known for certain that Martha was seeing the man. She had thought it better to trust her.