"You are little Trixy's mother," she went on, smiling. "I am very glad to know you for her sake. She and my little son are great friends."
"You have a son?" said Mrs. Wentworth, as she exchanged cards with Laurel. She sighed heavily, and then Laurel noticed that she wore a black dress. "Ah, I had a son, too, Mrs. Lynn, a beautiful boy that would be as old now as yours had he lived, but he lies buried in an English graveyard."
"You are English?" asked Laurel, gently, her heart melting in sympathy with the tear that sparkled down Beatrix's cheek.
"No, I am American, but I have lived in England ever since my marriage, nine years ago. Little Trixy was born in London, as also my little Cyril, dead three years ago. We have come home now to live."
"We?" said Mrs. Lynn, with a slight, interrogative accent on the pronoun.
"I should have said Mr. Wentworth and myself, and Trixy. There are only three of us," explained Beatrix, pensively, and smothering a sigh.
Laurel wondered to herself whether the Gordons had ever forgiven their daughter; she wondered what had become of smart, pretty Clarice Wells. But she could not ask any of these questions that filled her thoughts, because she had decided that she, in her own proper identity, would remain as dead to Mrs. Wentworth as she was to the rest of the world. They stood there side by side, the two fair women who had so greatly influenced each other's lives, and gazed pensively at the sun-gilded waves, trying to put away the thoughts of the past that each recalled to the other, and to recall themselves to the present.
"I have read your books, Mrs. Lynn," said Beatrix. "I think they are among the most beautiful in the language. I am proud of you as an American author."
"You praise my poor efforts too highly," Laurel said, with her slow, half-sad smile.
"I do not think so. The critics agree with me at least," said Beatrix. "Do you not find it very pleasant to be laurel crowned, Mrs. Lynn—to win the applause of the world and own a name that will live beyond the grave?"