Emily wouldn't ask Bob about "that man." She saw him one day on the street. The next day Martha announced she was going to Chicago. She had to get something for cushions, and a tray. Emily offered to go with her. Martha expressed no eagerness for her company, but showed a desire to go alone. She went, and came back with her purchases.
She went again the next week. Emily was glad to have her away, for a change. She had never gone to play golf since that afternoon. She went about with her girl friends when she couldn't avoid going. She went nearly every evening for a swim with some of them. When she came back, sometimes she went and sat alone in the boat tied under the willow until bedtime. Emily's heart smote her when she saw the girl sitting alone there, in the starlight, a dimmed firefly among the shining ones. That boat, that willow—were for two. She had to think soberly about the deserted veranda, where Bob sat now without blushing. And where were the boys that had been "hanging about" before? Martha had said more than once that they came just to "jolly" her mother. They weren't coming now for that purpose. Johnnie passed back and forth every day up and down the street, but he never came in, unless his mother had sent him on an errand.
The first week of August Emily met Eve downtown. That was a jolt. "Have you been back long?" she asked, carelessly. And Eve hurried to say that she had been back a few days, but she was trying to help at home. Her grandmother was very bad. The nurses were busy every minute. But Eve was going to find time to come down. "I meant to come and see YOU," she asserted, with eager sincerity, with just a little stress on the "you." "I'm going to be here all the time now. My sister's gone," she added cheerfully.
When she went on her way, Emily sighed with deep relief. Those people and their shadow over the Kenworthys had left, finally. Maybe things would be gay now, as they used to be. But Martha, who had given no sign and never mentioned either of them again to Emily, seemed to be unaware of their departure. She was tired, and it was hot, and she wanted to rest. She stated her case with dignity, gently. There was nothing Emily could object to in her bearing.
There was nothing they could object to in her manner the next week, when she refused to drive to Springfield with her father and mother. Bob would do the driving, and she had never liked riding alone in the back seat. So the Kenworthys went alone, and spent the day, and came driving back towards home through the country darkness about midnight.
The day had added to the burden on Emily's mind, instead of lightening it. She had been visiting a friend while Bob had been hurrying through his business. They had been silent for miles, when Emily began talking, wearily:
"Fanny was telling me about her niece, Bob. She wondered if we could get her a job in town here. Her husband has left her with those two children. She learned typing, but she hasn't had any experience. She wants to get some place where she can make a home for them. She'll have to divorce him. I wondered—if she could get some work here, maybe I could help her with the children, sometimes. I said we'd look round and see if we could do anything," Emily sighed.
"She married that Grey, didn't she? Who vamped him?" That was the way Bob WOULD put it, of course. Everything he thought of as some woman's fault.
"I don't know. He's no good. They tried every way to get her not to marry him." Emily sighed again. These daughters—these tragedies. The rumbling of incredible possibilities on the horizon—Emily fell silent, sighing sometimes.
The car drew up to the house, and Emily reproved herself for worrying. It was lighted up; the victrola was playing. It would be gay with dancing within. But the blinds were down, strange to say. Never mind that—Martha was happy again. She was having a party of friends. Bob and Emily went up the walk and into the front hall, both of them relieved and eager, and through it into the living room, to put down their parcels on the table.