‘That’s true, that’s true,’ he said: ‘but it’s not a cheerful subject, my dear, and just when your life is at its happiest——’
‘Don’t you think, father,’ said Joyce, ‘that when you are at your happiest it is like coming to an end?—for it seems as if heaven itself couldn’t do any more for you, and the next step must just be coming down among common folk.’
‘Don’t say that to Bellendean,’ cried the Colonel, ‘for you may be sure he thinks that heaven can do a good deal more for him, and you too.’
But it was always an effort on the Colonel’s part to bring her back to the contemplation of more cheerful prospects. She came in, however, freshened by the lively wind, her colour raised, her hair playing about her forehead in little rings, disentangled by the breeze, and was cheerful at luncheon, responding to all that was said. When they had left the table, she drew Mrs. Hayward aside for a moment, and asked if she might keep the miniature which had been given her to wear the previous night.
‘I think so, Joyce: you have the best right to it. Ask your father, if you have any doubt on the subject.’
‘I would rather ask you. It was kind, kind to bring it to me: nobody else would have had that thought.’
‘I have always wanted to be kind,’ Mrs. Hayward said, moved by an emotion which surprised her. ‘We may not always have understood each other, Joyce. I may have been sometimes not quite just, and you were not responsive. It was neither your fault nor mine. The circumstances were hard upon us: but in the future——’
‘I cannot call you mother,’ said Joyce. ‘You would maybe not like it, and I’m slow, slow to move, and I could not. But I would like to call you a true friend. I am sure you are a true friend. And we will never misunderstand each other again.’
‘My dear, there’s a kiss to that bargain,’ said Elizabeth, with her eyes full of tears. She said after a moment, with a tremulous laugh, ‘But we’ll misunderstand each other a hundred times, only after this it will always come right.’
There were no tears in Joyce’s eyes, but there was something in them which was not usually there. Mrs. Hayward, after she had kissed her, looked at her again with mingled anxiety and curiosity. ‘Joyce,’ she said, ‘you are tired out. I don’t think you can have slept last night. Go and lie down and rest a little. You have got that look that is in your mother’s eyes.’