“I shan’t be able to do that American tour next year, and I shall never have a baby. Some people think kids are a nuisance, but I’d like to have had one. Babies are awful cute, aren’t they? Mabel Floyd’s got a kid of four years old, and she does all her mother’s songs. Makes you die with laughing. You should see her do the Bond Street strut, with her mother’s monocle. She’ll make a hit on the halls one of these days. Got it in her, you know, same as I had.” She looked at a framed photograph which hung on one of the walls. “Mother died when she was thirty-two, but that was because she got soaking wet one night, going to the theatre. But she didn’t mind dying much. I remember that. She was dead tired, you know. My father took his hook when I was four years old, and he had knocked all the life out of her. I can remember her saying, ‘If it wasn’t for you, I’d be glad to take a rest, Fay.’ But I don’t feel like that. I never allowed any man to make my life a misery. If there was any misery going about, the men got it. I wasn’t taking any. Take my tip, my dear, don’t you let ’em squeeze everything out of you. Mother taught me that lesson. She had a thin time, poor thing.” Suddenly she commenced to cry again, but gently. “I’ve heard people say that those that are dead can look down on us. Do you think mother can see me now?”
“Perhaps, Fay. We know very little about the spiritual world.”
After a minute Fay took her head off Claudia’s shoulder, and pushed her away a little with one of her small, babyish hands. Her blue eyes, still wet, searched her face with such acuteness that Claudia was glad she had nothing to hide any longer.
“Claudia, did you think all this out—about the fighting—as you came to see me? Did you make it all up?”
Claudia shook her head, and her eyes were dark with her own thoughts as she replied:
“No, Fay. It wasn’t thought out at all. I’ll tell you the truth. I hadn’t the least idea what I could say to you. I kept on asking myself, ‘What shall I say? What shall I say?’ Then suddenly, as I came into your room and saw you crying among the pillows, I knew what life must mean for you, for me, for Jack, for everybody. A sudden light seemed to come to me. An answer came to some questions I have lately been putting to myself. I realized that it doesn’t matter whether you win or lose, whether you are happy or unhappy, as long as you keep on fighting. I don’t understand life any more than you do, dear. Sometimes it seems a pretty dreary business. I’m hopelessly at sea. But—I see now—one must go on swimming. You mustn’t just let your arms fall to your side and sink. Perhaps, if you keep on swimming, a boat may pick you up, or you may find an unsuspected island, and even if you don’t get rescued, I think one must die—swimming.”
Fay’s eyes opened widely, and her arms stole again round her sister-in-law’s neck.
“How sad your voice sounds,” she whispered. “Are you having a bad time? Aren’t you happy, either?”
Her sister-in-law’s voice was a little unsteady as she said, in a low voice, “Fay, shall I tell you a secret? Can you keep one?”
“Honour bright. May I be——”