With Elinor a lover was a creature to be analyzed mercilessly under the suspicion that otherwise he might get some power over one by sheer force of his affection; he was pictured in all sorts of impossible situations to test his attraction, every barrier was erected that ingenuity could devise. The way Elinor “treated” Robert was one of the stock subjects of interest and reprehension in the family, though Robert, intelligent, darkly good-looking and ineffective, was simply pleased if she was pleasant, and patiently snubbed when she wasn’t. Annette and Joseph—that patently good fellow who had had the courage of his convictions four years ago—enjoyed their little confidences of amused laughter over the situation. Still, precedent had made an engagement of marriage something to be very thoughtfully entered into, or necessarily prolonged. When it came to Tina——
Mrs. Malison wrote to her husband, as he did to her, every night during his long absences from home. She reposed so thoroughly in theory on his judgment that neither of them realized that in practice she decided everything. Her resolution to restrict the girl’s gaieties was suddenly hardened by the events of the dance, though it was twenty-four hours before she got a chance to express it, Tina having slept until the late afternoon in defiance of her pledge to study, and visitors taking up the rest of the day. One visitor, indeed, was partly responsible for the mother’s steadily increasing purpose; kind, elderly, little Miss Ward in her neat black jacket, trimmed with a mysterious ginger-coloured fur, being one of those amiable conversationalists who scatter the seeds of discomfort wherever they tread. Mrs. Malison, although she knew from aforetime what she had to expect, couldn’t help the usual thrill of exasperation at the opening sentence:
“How fleshy you are growing! I said the other day as you were passing, ‘I hardly knew Mrs. Malison, she’s getting so stout; it’s easy to see that she doesn’t let things worry her!’ Your husband looked very badly, I think, when he was here last. I want to apologize for not coming before to congratulate Miss Elinor on her engagement to Mr. Harper.”
“My dear Miss Ward, you have been misinformed”—Mrs. Malison felt that she was holding herself well in hand—“Elinor would be very much obliged to you, I’m sure—but there is no engagement.”
“Well, now, isn’t that singular!” Miss Ward’s small features indicated a deep and wondering interest. “I certainly understood from Mrs. Painter that Ethel said it was announced; I know she mentioned that every one was talking of it. I was there yesterday looking at the things Mrs. Painter brought over from the other side—beautiful, aren’t they? She gave me a lovely little framed photograph from some place in Italy—Sorrento, I think; you can get them here for a quarter, but of course it’s the thought you value. She showed me the most exquisite laces—and hats——! Six of them; perfect dreams. How pretty your hat looks this year; you’ve had such good wear out of it, too, haven’t you? I’m sure I never mind if a thing isn’t in the newest style! Oh, by the way, my sister was one of the chaperons with you last night at the young people’s dance. She said Miss Tina evidently enjoyed herself if one could judge by her actions—quite a case, isn’t she! And so noticeable-looking, too. Of course, when she gets as old as your other daughters she’ll sober down; I’m sure, as I told my sister, you never see them doing anything conspicuous.”
Conspicuous! The word of all others calculated to bring the blood to a mother’s cheek. Mrs. Malison trembled almost visibly with her effort at self-control, as she switched the conversation further afield, though she saw as plainly as on the night before the lighted ballroom and the tall, lissome, white-clad figure of Tina, with gleaming golden hair and scintillating eyes, “holding hands” with Francis Fanshawe in ring-around-a-rosy fashion, now high above her head, now swinging low down, as the two went flying across the floor, not once, but many times, with an exaggerated, heel-and-toe, boy-and-girl sportiveness after every one else was seated and the music had grown as freakishly mad as they. Mrs. Malison had not realized at first that it was Tina. Then, after that whispered rebuke they had disappeared until it was nearly time to go home, emerging finally, on being sent for, from a palm-hidden corner of the enclosed balcony, Tina with very flushed cheeks, hazy eyes and a general air of having been Called Back, too plain to be mistaken—a perfectly open, childlike defiance of inevitable comment that made one moan in ludicrous dismay. There is nothing so patently open to criticism as innocence. Even through the “thuddiness” of Francis there showed the glitter of an eye which told of the spirit within. Mrs. Malison’s annoyance had culminated when she spoke to Tina on the second morning. She was fully nerved for struggle. This thing had to stop.
“Tina, I have been waiting for an opportunity to speak to you about the ball. I was very much displeased with your behaviour; very much displeased! I felt obliged to write to your father about it. I cannot allow you to go to another dance this winter.”
“All right; I don’t want to,” said Tina uninterestedly.
She had thrown herself down on the wicker lounge beside a black poodle stretched out on the Roman-striped coverlet, and putting her arms around the animal surveyed her mother from this position. Mrs. Malison’s eyes feasted on the picture.