“Polly is busied with a surprise,” he told her, “a horrible war opera, I presume. No one seems able to convince her she is hopeless. And that ridiculous devil of a Collin has gone to fight, bless him, while Ernestine has fallen prey to war-madness which is besetting emotional and idle women and she will return with a new stock of morbidity—because she has tried to do something which she had no excuse for attempting.”
“What of Mark, Lissa, Hortense?” she persisted, laughing.
“Banish them from my thoughts—” he looked at her critically. “Yes, it did you good. Now that I’ve set the example, why not follow it? Find a wilderness and build a house in the middle of it. At eighty-two you’ll have the critics wrangling as to whether you are your own daughter!”
“Where shall I go?” she asked rather pointedly.
“Aha, you want to poach on my reserve? You can’t do it! Take your own home town; isn’t it wild in spots? Seems to me you used to say so. Take twenty acres and bury yourself in it. Do the things we did those four weeks.”
“Birge’s Corners!” So, he was to remain aloof. Birge’s Corners where she had returned in foolish triumph and ostentation—Dan and his son and Lorraine would be there, a harmonious trio! There was no place for her at Birge’s Corners.
“I’ll consider it,” was all she said.
“I came to tell you of Sam Sparling,” Hobart added in a gentler tone. “Evidently you have not heard?”
She shook her head.