Margaret’s thin lip curled. She made me wonder what explosion was going to follow.
“It doesn’t matter about Robert,” she said, turning her head ever so slightly in my direction. “He knows that I’ve tagged behind mother all my life; he knows that I never could keep up. He even knows how hard I used to try. I’m not good enough and I’m not clever enough. She was a whirlwind. I feel her death more than any of you,—I understood her better,—but you don’t know what it has been like.”
She was sobbing now, gently, indeed, but with every sign of an hysterical outburst, save that her voice never rose above its ordinary key. I felt sure that she was not being histrionic even for her own benefit, sure that she was filled with despairing grief, sure that she was holding hard to the crumbling edge of self-control; but I wondered what martyrdom of stifled individualism she was keeping back. Evidently Charles and I did not understand.
Pale, horrified, obviously angry at the sudden exposure of his sister’s weakness, Charles Longbow rose from his chair and confronted her.
“Margaret,” he said, and I detected in him, as he spoke, a comical resemblance to Mrs. Longbow, “I can’t see, to be sure, why you should behave so childishly. You ought to know better than any one else the importance of mother’s work, and you owe it to her not to drop out now that she is dead. She liked Italy, too, but she had a sense of duty.”
“She had—oh, I know all about it!” Margaret had suddenly grown calm, and spoke with something like scorn. “But you don’t know what it was to live with her so many hours every day—to be so dependent on her. I haven’t cultivated any sense of duty of my own.”
“You must need to rest,” I remarked, wishing more than ever that I could go away, and feeling sure that Charles would give anything to get me out of the house. “A winter in Italy would do both of you a lot of good, I feel sure, after all the strain you’ve been through. Why don’t you go with Margaret, Charlie?”
He looked at me, sad-eyed and a little wondering.
“I couldn’t possibly take the time, Bob; but I dare say Margaret does need a change. I’m sorry it I spoke impatiently. Only I can’t stand it, Sister, when you speak as though mother were somehow to blame.”
“It’s all right, Charlie,” said Margaret, smiling from her cushions. “I shouldn’t have broken out so. My nerves are on edge, I suppose. Perhaps I shall come back from Italy after a while quite ready to take hold. And one can write even in Italy.”