The large bare drawing-room, which was sunnily lighted from the southwest, was singularly without the usual furniture of what Conny called "civilized life." There were no rugs, few chairs, but one table, such as might be made by the village carpenter and stained black, which was littered with books and magazines. There was also a large writing cabinet of mahogany,—a magnificent piece of Southern colonial design,—and before the fire a modern couch. Conny inventoried all this in a glance. She could not "make it out." 'They can't be as poor as that,' she reflected, and turned to the books on the table.
"Weiniger's Sex and Character," she announced, "Brieux's Maternite,
Lavedan, Stendhal, Strobel on Child Life,—well, you do read! And this?"
She held up a yellow volume of French plays. "What do you do with this when
the Bishop comes?"
"The Bishop is used to me now. Besides, he doesn't see very well, poor dear, and has forgotten his French. Have you read that book of Weiniger's? It is a good dose for woman's conceit these days."
There was a touch of playful cynicism in the tone, which went with the fleeting smile. Mrs. Pole understood Cornelia Woodyard perfectly, and was amused by her. But Conny's coarse and determined handling of life did not fascinate her fastidious nature as it had fascinated Isabelle's.
Conny continued to poke among the books, emitting comments as she happened upon unexpected things. It was the heterogeneous reading of an untrained woman, who was seeking blindly in many directions for guidance, for light, trying to appease an awakened intellect, and to answer certain gnawing questions of her soul….
Isabelle and Margaret talked of their visit at the Virginia Springs. In the mature face, Isabelle was seeking the blond-haired girl, with deep-set blue eyes, and sensitive mouth, that she had admired at St. Mary's. Now it was not even pretty, although it spoke of race, for the bony features, the high brow, the thin nose, had emerged, as if chiselled from the flesh by pain.
'She has suffered,' Isabelle thought, 'suffered—and lived.'
Conny had recounted to Isabelle on their way out some of the rumors about the Poles. Larry Pole was a weakling, had gone wrong in money matters,—nothing that had flared up in scandal, merely family transactions. Margaret had taken the family abroad—she had inherited something from her mother—and suddenly they had come back to New York, and Larry had found a petty job in the city. Evidently, from the bare house, their hiding themselves out here, most of the wife's money had gone, too.
Pity! because Margaret was proud. She had her Virginian mother's pride with a note of difference. The mother had been proud in the conventional way, of her family, her position,—things. Margaret had the pride of accomplishment,—of deeds. She was the kind who would have gone ragged with a poet or lived content in a sod hut with a Man. And she had married this Larry Pole, who according to Conny looked seedy and was often rather "boozy." How could she have made such a mistake,—Margaret of all women? That Englishman Hollenby, who really was somebody, had been much interested in her. Why hadn't she married him? Nobody would know the reason….
The luncheon was very good. The black cook, "a relic of my mother's establishment," as Margaret explained, gave them a few savory family dishes, and there was a light French wine. Margaret ate little and talked little, seeming to enjoy the vivacity of the other women.