Mrs. Oldham greeted Hayden most graciously, but he could not fail to notice that she turned to her daughter with an indefinable displeasure in both glance and manner. She was a small woman, barely as high as Marcia's shoulder; a surprise always, when noted, for the carriage of her head and shoulders gave the impression of her being above medium height; she had evidently been an extremely pretty creature of the Dresden‑china type, and she still bore the manner and assurance of beauty, fortifying this mental attitude by a genius for dress. Thus she succeeded in maintaining an illusion perfectly satisfactory to herself, if not quite to others, for it was rather a hungry beast of an illusion and demanded constant oblation and sacrifice.
Her hair, like Marcia's, was dark with the same loose and heavy waves, and her features exhibited the same delicate regularity; but the strength and sweetness of character so marked in the daughter's face were lacking in the mother's. Two rather striking blemishes on the older woman's beauty, a wandering eye and a scar on the soft cheek, she took her own peculiar method of ignoring, thus completely and effectively discounting any unfavorable opinion in the mind of the beholder. Consequently, she frequently referred to them, never as blemishes, but as slight but significant evidences of a distinctive and distinguished individuality.
"Oh, Marcia! What a dream of a hat!" cried Kitty. "And new. It's a Henri Dondel or a Carlier."
Marcia laughed her gentle and charming laugh. "Yes, it's new and I'm so glad you like it."
"New, new, new," said her mother petulantly. "It's something new every day. I never saw such a spendthrift. It's a good thing my wants are so few."
Marcia did not appear to hear this, and almost immediately her attention was taken up by the entrance of Wilfred Ames, big, stolid and good‑looking, while hard upon his heels followed Horace Penfield.
Mrs. Oldham, seeing that Penfield had gravitated toward the three women, Edith Symmes, Kitty and Bea, and that Ames had drawn Marcia a little apart, urged Hayden to come and sit beside her tea‑table and let her brew him a cup of fresh tea.
"It's really a rest for me, Mr. Hayden," she said pathetically, "for truly, it is very little rest I get. This big house to look after—Marcia is not the least assistance to me in housekeeping—and a daughter on one's mind." She sighed heavily. "It is enough to make Mr. Oldham turn over in his grave if he could see all the care and responsibility that is thrown on my shoulders. He couldn't endure the thought of such a thing. He always said to me: 'Those little feet were made to tread on flowers.' He was so absurd about my feet, you know. Not that they are anything remarkable; but I'm from the South, Mr. Hayden, and it's only natural that I should have beautiful feet.
"But then, as I often told him, he was just so constituted that he could see nothing in me but absolute perfection. Why, do you know, one of my eyes has a slight, oh, a very slight defect, you have probably not noticed it. Well, we had been married for years before he ever saw it. I happened to mention it and he simply would not believe me until I convinced him by standing before him in a very strong light with my eyes wide open. Do let me give you a little more tea. No? Then some sugar or lemon, just to freshen up a bit what you have. How handsome Marcia and Wilfred look standing together, she is so dark and he is so fair. He is a dear fellow and so steady and sedate. I love him like a son, and I consider his influence over Marcia excellent.
"She is, of course, the dearest thing in the world to me, Mr. Hayden. You will understand that, but I feel a mother's solicitude, and she has certain traits which I fear may become exaggerated faults. She is inclined to be head‑strong, heedless, wilful, and I'm afraid, sweet as Mrs. Hampton and Mrs. Habersham are—dear girls! I love them like my own daughters—that they encourage Marcia in her defiance of proper authority and her dreadful extravagance. But," sighing, "she is young and pretty and she does not think; although Mr. Oldham used often to say: 'Marcia will never have her mother's beauty.' What do you think of such an absurdity?"