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_ She leaned back and laughed reassuringly to her troubled mother.
"It seemed to be a success--what I could," she said, clasping her
hands behind her neck and stirring the rocker to motion as a rhythmic
accompaniment to her narrative. "The girl Edith and her sister-in-
law, Mrs. Roscoe Sheridan, were too anxious about the effect of things
on me. The father's worth a bushel of both of them, if they knew it.
He's what he is. I like him." She paused reflectively, continuing,
"Edith's 'interested' in that Lamhorn boy; he's good-looking and not
stupid, but I think he's--" She interrupted herself with a cheery
outcry: "Oh! I mustn't be calling him names! If he's trying to make
Edith like him, I ought to respect him as a colleague."
"I don't understand a thing you're talking about," Mrs. Vertrees
complained.
"All the better! Well, he's a bad lot, that Lamhorn boy; everybody's
always known that, but the Sheridans don't know the everybodies that
know. He sat between Edith and Mrs. Roscoe Sheridan. SHE'S like
those people you wondered about at the theater, the last time we
went --dressed in ball-gowns; bound to show their clothes and jewels
SOMEwhere! She flatters the father, and so did I, for that matter--
but not that way. I treated him outrageously!"
"Mary!"
"That's what flattered him. After dinner he made the whole regiment
of us follow him all over the house, while he lectured like a guide
on the Palatine. He gave dimensions and costs, and the whole b'ilin'
of 'em listened as if they thought he intended to make them a present
of the house. What he was proudest of was the plumbing and that Bay
of Naples panorama in the hall. He made us look at all the plumbing
--bath-rooms and everywhere else--and then he made us look at the Bay
of Naples. He said it was a hundred and eleven feet long, but I think
it's more. And he led us all into the ready-made library to see a
poem Edith had taken a prize with at school. They'd had it printed
in gold letters and framed in mother-of-pearl. But the poem itself
was rather simple and wistful and nice--he read it to us, though Edith
tried to stop him. She was modest about it, and said she'd never
written anything else. And then, after a while, Mrs. Roscoe Sheridan
asked me to come across the street to her house with them--her husband
and Edith and Mr. Lamhorn and Jim Sheridan--"
Mrs. Vertrees was shocked. "'Jim'!" she exclaimed. "Mary, PLEASE--"
"Of course," said Mary. "I'll make it as easy for you as I can,
mamma. Mr. James Sheridan, Junior. We went over there, and Mrs.
Roscoe explained that 'the men were all dying for a drink,' though
I noticed that Mr. Lamhorn was the only one near death's door on that
account. Edith and Mrs. Roscoe said they knew I'd been bored at the
dinner. They were objectionably apologetic about it, and they seemed
to think NOW we were going to have a 'good time' to make up for it.
But I hadn't been bored at the dinner, I'd been amused; and the 'good
time' at Mrs. Roscoe's was horribly, horribly stupid."
"But, Mary," her mother began, "is--is--" And she seemed unable to
complete the question.
"Never mind, mamma. I'll say it. Is Mr. James Sheridan, Junior,
stupid? I'm sure he's not at all stupid about business. Otherwise
--Oh, what right have I to be calling people 'stupid' because they're
not exactly my kind? On the big dinner-table they had enormous icing
models of the Sheridan Building--"
"Oh, no!" Mrs. Vertrees cried. "Surely not!"
"Yes, and two other things of that kind--I don't know what. But,
after all, I wondered if they were so bad. If I'd been at a dinner
at a palace in Italy, and a relief or inscription on one of the old
silver pieces had referred to some great deed or achievement of the
family, I shouldn't have felt superior; I'd have thought it
picturesque and stately--I'd have been impressed. And what's the
real difference? The icing is temporary, and that's much more modest,
isn't it? And why is it vulgar to feel important more on account of
something you've done yourself than because of something one of your
ancestors did? Besides, if we go back a few generations, we've all
got such hundreds of ancestors it seems idiotic to go picking out one
or two to be proud of ourselves about. Well, then, mamma, I managed
not to feel superior to Mr. James Sheridan, Junior, because he didn't
see anything out of place in the Sheridan Building in sugar."
Mrs. Vertrees's expression had lost none of its anxiety pending the
conclusion of this lively bit of analysis, and she shook her head
gravely. "My dear, dear child," she said, "it seems to me--It looks
--I'm afraid--"
"Say as much of it as you can, mamma," said Mary, encouragingly.
"I can get it, if you'll just give me one key-word."
"Everything you say," Mrs. Vertrees began, timidly, "seems to have
the air of--it is as if you were seeking to--to make yourself--"
"Oh, I see! You mean I sound as if I were trying to force myself
to like him."
"Not exactly, Mary. That wasn't quite what I meant," said Mrs.
Vertrees, speaking direct untruth with perfect unconsciousness.
"But you said that--that you found the latter part of the evening
at young Mrs. Sheridan's unentertaining--"
"And as Mr. James Sheridan was there, and I saw more of him than
at dinner, and had a horribly stupid time in spite of that, you
think I--" And then it was Mary who left the deduction unfinished.
Mrs. Vertrees nodded; and though both the mother and the daughter
understood, Mary felt it better to make the understanding definite.
"Well," she asked, gravely, "is there anything else I can do? You
and papa don't want me to do anything that distresses me, and so,
as this is the only thing to be done, it seems it's up to me not to
let it distress me. That's all there is about it, isn't it?"
"But nothing MUST distress you!" the mother cried.
"That's what I say!" said Mary, cheerfully. "And so it doesn't.
It's all right." She rose and took her cloak over her arm, as if to
go to her own room. But on the way to the door she stopped, and stood
leaning against the foot of the bed, contemplating a threadbare rug at
her feet. "Mother, you've told me a thousand times that it doesn't
really matter whom a girl marries."
"No, no!" Mrs. Vertrees protested. "I never said such a--"
"No, not in words; I mean what you MEANT. It's true, isn't it, that
marriage really is 'not a bed of roses, but a field of battle'? To
get right down to it, a girl could fight it out with anybody, couldn't
she? One man as well as another?"
"Oh, my dear! I'm sure your father and I--"
"Yes, yes," said Mary, indulgently. "I don't mean you and papa.
But isn't it propinquity that makes marriages? So many people
say so, there must be something in it."
"Mary, I can't bear for you to talk like that." And Mrs. Vertrees
lifted pleading eyes to her daughter--eyes that begged to be spared.
"It sound--almost reckless!"
Mary caught the appeal, came to her, and kissed her gaily. "Never
fret, dear! I'm not likely to do anything I don't want to do--I've
always been too thorough-going a little pig! And if it IS propinquity
that does our choosing for us, well, at least no girl in the world
could ask for more than THAT! How could there be any more propinquity
than the very house next door?"
She gave her mother a final kiss and went gaily all the way to the
door this time, pausing for her postscript with her hand on the knob.
"Oh, the one that caught me looking in the window, mamma, the youngest
one--"
"Did he speak of it?" Mrs. Vertrees asked, apprehensively.
"No. He didn't speak at all, that I saw, to any one. I didn't
meet him. But he isn't insane, I'm sure; or if he is, he has long
intervals when he's not. Mr. James Sheridan mentioned that he lived
at home when he was 'well enough'; and it may be he's only an invalid.
He looks dreadfully ill, but he has pleasant eyes, and it struck me
that if--if one were in the Sheridan family"--she laughed a little
ruefully--"he might be interesting to talk to sometimes, when there
was too much stocks and bonds. I didn't see him after dinner."
"There must be something wrong with him," said Mrs. Vertrees.
"They'd have introduced him if there wasn't."
"I don't know. He's been ill so much and away so much--sometimes
people like that just don't seem to 'count' in a family. His father
spoke of sending him back to a machine-shop or some sort; I suppose
he meant when the poor thing gets better. I glanced at him just
then, when Mr. Sheridan mentioned him, and he happened to be looking
straight at me; and he was pathetic-looking enough before that, but
the most tragic change came over him. He seemed just to die, right
there at the table!"
"You mean when his father spoke of sending him to the shop place?"
"Yes."
"Mr. Sheridan must be very unfeeling."
"No," said Mary, thoughtfully, "I don't think he is; but he might be
uncomprehending, and certainly he's the kind of man to do anything he
once sets out to do. But I wish I hadn't been looking at that poor
boy just then! I'm afraid I'll keep remembering--"
"I wouldn't." Mrs. Vertrees smiled faintly, and in her smile there
was the remotest ghost of a genteel roguishness. "I'd keep my mind
on pleasanter things, Mary."
Mary laughed and nodded. "Yes, indeed! Plenty pleasant enough,
and probably, if all were known, too good--even for me!"
And when she had gone Mrs. Vertrees drew a long breath, as if a burden
were off her mind, and, smiling, began to undress in a gentle reverie. _
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