“And would you leave your father and me, Tina, when we’ve taken care of you, and loved you, so much?” Mrs. Malison’s voice shook, she fastened her eyes on her daughter with anguish. Tina’s mouth took on the obstinate curve which the too obvious appeal to her affections always brought there. She didn’t even take the trouble to answer as she tapped irritatingly on the floor with her small foot. The silence conveyed even more forcibly than words that it was a recognized fact that people left their parents when they married without discredit attaching to them—it was part of the plan. Even through her wretchedness Mrs. Malison drearily acquiesced in the received view of the matter! but for Tina—her baby—— Ah, that was a different thing.
For Tina’s own good this time she must not have her way.
The mother went around all day with a stone on her heart, that made her face white and drawn and breathing difficult, while Annette and Elinor talked excitedly and incessantly with household avocations half done, and sought the dear little wayward sister separately afterwards, Annette with mute caresses, and larges pieces of bread and jam to supplement the lack of a breakfast, and Elinor with intelligent reasoning as she put the child’s collar straight and fastened her belt. Tina had never dressed herself alone in her life. “I thought I cared for Tommy Burns, Tina, when I was seventeen, and as for even looking at him now——! When it comes down to it, dear, what men have you ever seen?”
“I’ve seen—Robert,” said Tina dangerously, under her breath.
Elinor’s arms fell away from her office of tiring woman; she stood staring.
“Robert——?”
Tina’s eyes gleamed with a daring, revealing, lightning flash: “Well, if you’re never nice to a person yourself, Elinor——” She escaped to the doorway for a parting shot.
“Yes, Robert!” she called back elfishly, and fled, passing her mother with no recognition, and actually going out in young Fanshawe’s car with him for all the afternoon, only coming back in time for dinner, which was a state function, with guests, and going to bed immediately afterwards.
It is strange how one untoward event disrupts all the working order of the mind; that which has given joy loses its flavour, that which has been counted on as sure becomes fluctuant. Everything has to arrange itself anew. If Elinor wrote a note to a Robert who had neglected to appear, it was not from the dictates of reason, but from a novel and jealous desire for his presence. If Annette and Joseph sat up unusually late after the guests had departed it was, perhaps, because figuring over a housekeeping text-book wasn’t as satisfying as sometimes, and they had to keep at it a little longer to capture the pleasure of that future living together. Even to the most unselfish, the most vernally patient of lovers waiting may show a grim face, all “bare of bliss” at times, especially when confronted with a boy of twenty-one who has money and to spare for that leap over the matrimonial barriers. It was only after thoroughly studying a mysterious way of Approaching a Butcher, by which, although special cuts and roasts were so much a pound, you got a whole diagrammic ox for a dollar, that that prophetic feeling of happiness mingled once more with the lovers’ goodnight kiss. Heaven only knows what delicate sentiment was embedded in those visionary steaks and chops!