Lucille colored warmly. “You never look ahead, mother,” she complained.
Mrs. Hull dropped her eyes that Lucille might not see the sudden tears which filled them. She played nervously with her handkerchief before addressing her again.
“Where is your father now?” she inquired.
“He returned to Washington.” Lucille sighed. “I presume he is at the office.”
A troubled look crossed Mrs. Hull’s face. “He spends too much time there,” she said. “Julian is no longer a young man. I cannot help but think, as much as I like Gerald Armstrong, that he shirks his obligations to your father, Lucille.”
“Please, mother, no criticism of Gerald.” Lucille laid a warning finger across her mother’s lips.
Mrs. Hull stared at her daughter in silence. Mother love sharpened her usually abstracted gaze, and she saw with a dull ache in her heart the dark circles under Lucille’s handsome eyes and the paleness of her usually rosy cheeks. Impulsively she leaned forward and threw her arms about the girl.
“Is all well between you and Gerald?” she asked wistfully.
“Yes, mother,” but Lucille looked elsewhere than into her mother’s kindly eyes as she withdrew from her embrace. “Here comes Cousin Belle. Pull yourself together.”
Mrs. Meredith’s unexpected appearance through the north door took away what little wits Mrs. Hull had remaining to her. She stood in awe of her husband’s cousin, a feeling which she had never been able to conquer in the passing years and which had always prevented any degree of intimacy.