Surely when Fran heard good old Matey gossip of their friends, when she scented Zenith again—The miracle had happened!
“But, Sam dear,” Fran protested, “I don’t see any reason under Heaven why we should go down! And you complaining of how tired you were of Paris when we left it! I know how fond you are of your friends, but I don’t see why you should let them use you!”
“But don’t you want to see Tub and Matey?”
“Don’t be silly! Of course, I’d be very glad to see them. But to trot all the way to Paris—”
“But don’t you want—I can’t imagine your not wanting—”
“Well, if you must know, I think your good friend Mr. Tub Pearson is a little heavy in the hand. He always works so hard at being humorous. And you yourself have admitted that Matey is dreadfully uninteresting. And fat! Good Heavens, I’ve had them for twenty years! No, you can do what you’d like, but I’m not going.”
“But I wouldn’t be much good to ’em as a guide. I can’t speak French.”
“Exactly! Then why go? They can get along as everyone else does.”
“But you could make it so much pleasanter for them—”
“It’s all very well to be friendly and that sort of thing, but I’m not going to travel fifteen hours in a dirty train for the pleasure of acting as an unpaid Cook’s guide to Mr. and Mrs. Tub Pearson!”
“Well, all right. Then I’ll go by myself.”
“As you wish!”
She turned briskly to Kurt, and with excessive sweetness discoursed on the state of the theater in Central Europe. Kurt looked at Sam, troubled, wishing to say something soothing. Sam was very quiet all that evening.
It was she who opened the engagement when they were alone, at the hotel.
“I’m sorry about Tub, and I’ll go down there—a beastly journey!—if you absolutely insist—”
“I never insist on anything.”
“—but I do think it’s too ridiculous to be expected to be a guide—and of course your beloved Tub will want to go to the most obvious and stupid and Americanized places in Paris—”
“No, I’ve decided you’d better not come. You’re probably right. Tub will want to get drunk on Montmartre.”
“For which charming occupation, my dear Samuel, you’ll be a much better collaborator than I, I’m afraid!”
“Look here, Fran: I wonder if you have any idea how dangerous it might be for you, one of these days, if you go on being so airy and insulting with me? I’d stood—”
“ ’S the truth!”
“—a good deal. I can understand your not thinking Tub is any Endicott Everett Atkins, but how you can fail to enjoy giving a good time to a neighbor that we’ve known as long and as closely as we have Tub—Why you don’t, just for once, forget what you’re going to get out of it and think what you could give—”
“Oh, put in the Beatitudes, too!”
“—is simply beyond me! I used to think you were loyal!”
“I am! The way I’ve refused to stand anyone ever criticizing you—”
“Will you listen! Don’t be so damned perfect, just for once! I used to think you were loyal, but between this business about Tub, and your lack of interest in Emily’s boy—”
“Now I’ve had enough! You’ve quite sufficiently indicated that I’m an inhuman monster! Why, after I heard the news about Emily, I cried half the night, wanting to see her and the baby. But—Oh, if I could only make you understand!” She had thrown off her flippancy and was naked and defenseless in her seriousness. “I do rejoice that she has a child. I do love her. But—oh, I’ve tried to use my brains, such as they are, which I admit isn’t very much, except that I do have common sense. I’ve tried not to be sentimental, and ruin myself, yes, and you, without doing Emily or anybody else any good! What good would it do if I were there? Could I help her? I could not! I’d just be in the way. Heavens, any trained nurse would be of more value than a dozen me’s, and she’s surrounded with only too much love and solicitude. I’d be just another burden, at a time when she has plenty. On the other hand, as it would affect me—
“When the world hears the word ‘grandmother,’ it pictures an old woman, a withered old woman, who’s absolutely hors de combat. I’m not that and I’m not going to be, for another twenty years. And yet, most people are so conventional-minded that even if they know me, see me, dance with me, once they hear I’m a grandmother that label influences them more than their own senses, and they put me on the sidelines immediately. I won’t be! And yet I love Emily and—
“Let me tell you, young man, when there was something I could do for her, and for Brent, I did it! I’m not for one second going to stand any hints from you that I’m not a good mother—and loyal! For twenty years, or anyway till Brent went off to college, there wasn’t one thing those children wore that I didn’t buy. There wasn’t a thing they ate that I didn’t order. You—oh yes, you came grandly home from the office and permitted Em to ride on your shoulders and thought what a wonderful parent you were, but who’d taken her to the dentist that day? I had! Who’d planned her party and written the invitations? I had! Who’d gotten down on her knees and scrubbed Em’s floor when the maids had the flu and the nurse was away junketing? I did! I’ve done my work, I’ve earned the right to play, and I’m not going to be robbed of it just because you’re so slow and unimaginative that you’ve lost the power of enjoyment and can’t
