"Make all the difference? I mean that he could get his violin-playing back. I told you about that letter?"
"No—what letter?"
"From an agent in Paris. Rateau, I think, was the name. Had heard Signor Carissimi had recovered his health completely, and was playing. Hoped he might be honoured with his instructions to make his arrangements in Paris, as he had done so four years ago. Wasn't it aggravating?"
"Does it make any difference?"
"Why, of course it does, mother darling. The aggravation! Just think now! Suppose he could rely on ten pounds a night, fancy that!"
"Suppose he could!... Yes, that would be nice." But there is a preoccupation in her tone, and Sally wants sympathy to be drawn with a vigorous outline.
"What's my maternal parent thinking about, as grave as a judge? Jeremiah's all right, mammy darling! He's not killed in a railway accident. Catch him!" This is part of a systematized relationship between the two. Each always discredits the possibility of mishap to the other. It might be described as chronic reciprocal Christian Science.
"I wasn't thinking of Gerry." Which is true in a sense, as she does not think of the Gerry her daughter knows. And the partial untruth does not cross her mind—a tacit recognition of the powers of change. "I was wool-gathering."
"No—what was she thinking of?" For some reason the third person is thought more persuasive than the second.
"Thinking of her kitten." And this is true enough, as Rosalind is really always thinking of Sally, more or less.