On the evening of the day on which Mrs. Robert Lee-Satterlee—the grandeur of whose name was never reduced by the omission of a single syllable—asked Nancy to go to California, Nancy had talked it over with Henry.
"It would be nice to go, for I haven't really been away since Mother died. I confess I'd like it, but she's not coming back until March, and that seems a long time to leave Harry and the house."
Henry had leisurely put his cigar into his mouth, had puffed luxuriously, and had then continued to gaze at his paper without saying anything.
Nancy hated this indifference, and she knew that Henry knew that she hated it. It was like his whistling. At times, when for some reason or other he wished to be disagreeable, he would start quietly whistling behind his paper, apparently for his sole enjoyment. It was as if, in view of the coldness of his audience, he were forced to express himself in a humble and subdued manner, but express himself he must. The tunes that he chose were The Rosary, The Miserere, Tosti's Good-bye, Gounod's Ave Maria. There would be an occasional lapse into the jazz song of the moment, and quite frequently a sacred number. The songs themselves exasperated her, but what was unbearable were the trills and improvised fireworks. She would leave the room thoroughly angry, and would fancy that as she ascended the stairs the tune swelled slightly and acquired even more airs and graces.
So now, as he deliberately smoked his cigar without noticing her, her anger rose. He was so smug, so self-sufficient—she wanted to stick a pin into him.
"It isn't, of course, as if the house were not in capable hands," she went on, "for Katie and Julia are perfectly responsible, and Annie couldn't be better." Henry put down his paper, blew a cloud of smoke, and, looking blandly at her, twisted his mouth so that he might enjoy the luxury of biting his cheek.
"Well?" burst out Nancy. "I don't see why you need be so irritating about it?"
"Why, don't be foolish," he replied with an amused smile; "do just what you want, of course." To Nancy, the smile spoke a great deal more. "How fatuous you are," it said, "with your devotion to my son and to me. Let a lollypop in the way of a trip to California come along, and away you go as if you didn't have a responsibility in the world. There's a firm nature for you."
She had fled to Mrs. Norris, as always in an emergency, and, receiving reassuring words, she had gone, but not without tears and misgiving and not without an unforgettable memory of Henry's behaviour.
She had frankly discussed her Henry Problem with Mrs. Robert Lee-Satterlee. "I can't seem to reach any middle ground with him," she had said. "Either I feel terribly because things go so wrong, so much worse than when Mother was alive, or else I am furious with him. Then I am overwhelmed with mortification and make up my mind that I will get on with him, no matter what happens. And of course he can be perfectly lovely when he wants to be—and then he will deliberately go and do some horrid thing which makes me want to go away and—drive an auto stage, or something."