Her concert season did not begin until November, for which she was thankful and with Miss Clergy amicably assenting to the return, Thurley sent word to reopen the Fincherie.
Inspiring her return was the longing to see Dan and Lorraine and the harmony which their child had brought them. Envious though she was and starved with the longing to have some one of her very own, Thurley had come to judge things with a broader gauge. She wanted the satisfaction of saying to Dan that she was glad for him and she understood. She must tell Lorraine that she was truly friends with “the family!”
She knew her world would have ridiculed her ridiculous conscience, deeming it more essential that she reopen the flirtation with the chewing-gum king or find out a more distinctive method of advertising. But to Thurley the contented handshake of Dan Birge and his wife’s smile was more to the point. So she drove quietly into the Corners one warm, early fall day when every color in Dame Nature’s paint box had been employed in the bordering trees of the Fincherie lawn. She said to Ali Baba who met them eagerly,
“I’ve come home again.”
Nor did she waver from that manner. She went into the bedrooms and proceeded to settle Miss Clergy and herself with as businesslike an air as her own maid had done, stopping to ask Betsey and Hopeful questions which she knew would please, telling them again and again that it seemed good to “be home.”
“I guess you’ll find a lot of changes,” Betsey said, lingering in the room. “I guess you’re changed some yourself,” her kind old eyes looking at the girl shrewdly.
“Come, Betsey, you’re going to accuse me of growing old! Now what is it—let me hear the worst?”
“No,” Betsey pushed her glasses on to the top of her head so as to see the better, “it’s a change of heart—like I’ve heard tell about,” unconscious of Thurley’s desire both to laugh and cry, “a real change of heart, I guess.”
“Was I that bad?” Thurley asked penitently. “I thought only the town drunkards had changes of heart—” she paused, realizing it was not fair to tax Betsey’s sense of humor. “It is this, Betsey, I’ve grown up and with all the wonderful things life has given me, I have no one of my own, so,” she finished bravely, “I’m determined to belong to a town ... now, Betsey, tell me, what are my chances for having Birge’s Corners fall dead in love with me?” amused at Betsey’s struggles to be honest yet not offend.
“I guess you give ’em an earful the last time,” Betsey began. “You know, Thurley, they ain’t up to the new ways—and you—you—”