“Grace, I want you to know how sorry I am if I said anything to hurt you. You know that not for worlds would I be unkind or unjust to my own sister.”
“Oh, that’s all right, Ethel; just forget it,” Grace replied indifferently.
She bade her mother good-bye with all the cheer she could muster.
“Good-bye, Grace,” called Mrs. Durland from the window where she was scanning the newspaper. “I hope you’ll have a good day.”
“Thank you, mother.”
II
As the trolley bore her townward she decided that all things considered she had come off fairly well in the encounter; but she was not jubilant. She had probably established her right to go and come as she pleased, but the victory brought her no happiness. Ethel’s conciliatory words meant nothing; it was her sister’s way to manifest forbearance and tolerance, to smooth things over when there had been a clash between them. Grace had for her mother a real affection, sincerely admiring the effort she made to keep in touch with the best thought of the world—a pet phrase of Mrs. Durland’s. Mrs. Durland was kind, unselfish, well-meaning. She meant to live up to her ideal of motherhood. It was despicable to lie to her. Grace’s conscience was now busy tearing down the defenses behind which she had excused herself for going to Kemp’s party. Any uncertainty as to Irene’s relations with the manufacturer were dispelled by the visit to The Shack. The fact that Kemp’s money made it possible to surround the relationship with a degree of glamour did not mitigate the ugly fact. It might be that the people who talked so dolefully of the new generation and the low ebb to which old-fashioned morals had sunk were right. Irene’s affair with Kemp presented a situation which, if greatly multiplied, would mean the destruction of all that made womanhood precious.
Could she, Grace Durland, ever be like that? What was to prevent her from doing exactly what Irene was doing or falling even lower? Nothing, she pondered, but her own will and innate sense of righteousness. She would have no excuse for following Irene’s example. The home she had just left really stood for all those things she had been taught to believe were essential to right living. Her mother, with all her failings and weaknesses, had labored hard to implant in her children the principles of honor and rectitude. And her father, pitiful figure though he was, was a man of ideals and a pattern of morality. He believed in her; he was her friend and it would be shameful to do aught to bring disgrace upon him. And with an accession of generosity as she pondered, Grace saw Ethel, too, in a different light. With all her offensive assumption of saintly airs Ethel’s ideas of human conduct were sound. Ethel was a disagreeable person to live with, but nevertheless she was not always wrong. She had indubitably been right about Irene Kirby.
As Grace left the car she saw by a street clock that she still had ten minutes in which to report at the store and she loitered, eager to remain in the open as long as possible. And she rather dreaded meeting Irene.