Mrs. Hardy was chattering with mortification and excitement. Her plans had miscarried. Irene had misbehaved. Irene was a difficult, headstrong child. It was useless to argue with her in her present mood. It was useless to argue with her in any mood. No doubt Carlton had been impetuous. Nevertheless, he stood high in his set, and his father was something of a power in the financial world. As the wife of such a man Irene might have a career before her—a career from which at least some of the glory would reflect upon the silvering head of the mother of Mrs. Carlton. And now Irene, by her folly and her ungovernable temper, had spoiled all the carefully laid plans. Mrs. Hardy was a very badly used woman.
"Go to your room," she said, at length. "You are in no condition to talk to-night. I must say it is a shame that you can't go out for an evening without drinking too much and making a scene.… In a public place, too.… What will Mr. Carlton think of you?"
"If he remembers all I told him about himself he'll have enough to think of," the girl blazed back. "You know—what I have told you—and still Mister Carlton stands as high in your sight as ever. I am the one to blame. Very well. I've tried your choice, and I've tried my own. Now I am in a position to judge. There will be nothing to talk about in the morning. Mention Carlton's name to me again and I will give the whole incident to the papers. With photographs. And names. Fancy the feature heading, 'Society girl, intoxicated, kicks escort out of taxi.' Good night."
But other matters were to demand the attention of mother and daughter in the morning. While the scene was occurring in Mrs. Hardy's bed-room her husband, clad in white, toiled in the operating room to save the life of a fellow being. It was an emergency operation, performed by artificial light, and without adequate assistance. There was a slip of an instrument, but the surgeon toiled on; he could not, at that juncture, pause; the life of the patient was at stake. When the operation was finished he found his injury deeper than he supposed, and Irene was summoned from her heavy sleep that morning to attend his bedside. He talked to her as a philosopher; said his life's work was done, and he was just as glad to go in the harness; the estate should yield something, and there was his life insurance—a third would be for her. And when Mrs. Hardy was not at his side he found opportunity to whisper, "And if you really love that boy out west, marry him."
The sudden bereavement wrought a reconciliation between Mrs. Hardy and her daughter. Mrs. Hardy took her loss very much to heart. While Irene grieved for her father, Mrs. Hardy grieved for herself. It was awful to be left alone like this. There was something in her demeanour that suggested that Andrew had been rather unkind in departing as he did. And when the lawyers found that instead of a hundred thousand dollars the estate would yield a bare third of that sum she spoke openly of her husband's improvidence. He had enjoyed a handsome income, upon which his family had lived in luxury. That it was unequal to the strain of providing for them in that fashion and at the same time accumulating a reserve for such an eventuality as had occurred was a matter which his wife could scarcely overlook.
About this time it came to the notice of Mrs. Hardy that when the late Mr. Deware had departed this life Mrs. Deware, with her two daughters, had gone on a trip to England to dull the poignancy of their bereavement. The Dewares moved in the best circles, Mr. Deware having amassed a considerable fortune in the brewing business. It was obvious that whatever Mrs. Deware might do under such circumstances would be correct. Upon arrival at this conclusion Mrs. Hardy lost no time in buying two tickets for London.
Her health, however, had suffered a severe shock, for beneath her ostentation she felt as deep a regard for her late husband as was possible in one who measured everything in life by various social formulae. On the ocean voyage she contracted a cough, which the fogs of London did little to dispel, and February found her again on the Atlantic, with her mind occupied by more personal affairs than a seat at the captain's table. The voyage was a particularly unhappy one, and the widow's first concern upon reaching home was to consult a specialist who had enjoyed a close professional acquaintanceship with Dr. Hardy. The specialist gave her a careful, meditative, and solemn examination.
"Your condition is serious," he told her, "but not alarming. You must have a drier climate, and, preferably, a higher altitude. Fortunately, your heart is good, or I should have to keep you at sea level; that is, I should have had to sacrifice your lungs for your heart." The doctor spoke as though the sacrifice would have been all his, after the manner of a specialist. "As it is, I am convinced that the conditions your health demands are to be found in…" He named the former cow-town from which Irene's fateful automobile journey had had its start, and the young woman, who was present with her mother, felt herself go suddenly pale with the thought of a great prospect.
"Oh, I could never live there," Mrs. Hardy protested. "It is so crude. Cow punchers, you know, and all that sort of thing."
The specialist smiled. "You will probably not find it so crude, although I daresay some of its customs may jar on you," he remarked, dryly. "Still, I would recommend you to take your best gowns along. And it is not a case of not being able to live there. It is a case of not being able to live here. If you take my advice you should die of old age, so far, at least, as your present ailment is concerned. If you don't"—and he dropped his voice to just the correct note of gravity, which pleased Mrs. Hardy very much—"if you don't, I can't promise you a year."