“What an exquisite coat! So glad you found it, Joyce! How very becoming!”
It was the right attitude without a doubt, but it hadn’t the right inflection. It wasn’t as one girl to another, but as an ingratiating stepmother overanxious to be generous, affectionate.
There were no disagreements. Perhaps it might have cleared the air if there had been. Nor was there any constraint on the surface. It was too deep to come to the surface. That was the difficulty. Everything they said to each other was amplified—as through a loud speaker—intensifying their mutual assurances of devotion until it took on a tone of unreality. Each knew the other was trying hard to be natural. Each knew the other was playing a difficult part. Almost desperately, they scrambled for the old position; but they had lost the way to it.
Shortly after the death of Doctor Hudson, the distance between them increased markedly. For the first few days, they had clung to each other with a rededicated bond that promised to be, if not a restoration of their earlier comradeship, at least an earnest of future indispensability … possibly to become a more valuable relation than any they had heretofore sustained. But it was not for long.
Joyce’s grief, inconsolable for a week, quickly exhausted itself. It was only common honesty in her when she declared one day that she wasn’t going to sit moping any longer, for, volatile as she was, any protracted mourning would have been mere affectation, even if she were capable of it, which was doubtful.
Presently there came a disquieting furtiveness in her explanation of late hours. Helen’s gently tactful queries, implying an uneasiness about her social programme, were either dismissed lightly with a chaffing reply, or met with a brief—albeit friendly—hint that one was quite old enough now to know where one wanted to go, and with whom, and until when. She was not to trouble her pretty head about her flighty Joyce. She was to live her own life and stop worrying about trifles.
“Don’t sit up, darling!” Joyce would protest, at nine.
“I’m going out with Ned.” (Or Tom, or Pat, or Phil.) “We may be late, you know. Where? Oh—I’m not sure … to dance, some place, I suppose … and a bite of supper, later … Crystal Palace, maybe … Gordon’s, perhaps.”
“I don’t like your going out to Gordon’s, Joyce. Really—that’s not a nice place. Tell me you won’t … please!”
“Oh, very well! Only one can’t do all the deciding. One’s escort has something to say about that too.”
On the rose counterpane lay several letters; one of them from Montgomery Brent, brief, brotherly, suggesting that his counsel would be at his “little sister’s” disposal should she be troubled about business matters, now that her responsibilities were increased.
“Only too glad, you know, to straighten out the kinks for you when it comes to income tax, investments, and the safeguarding of your estate. That sort of thing is my daily work.”
“The dear boy!” she murmured half aloud, as she reread it, “How decent of him; and not a bit bad idea, either. I wonder does he really know anything about business. He ought to by this time.”
Montgomery, whom it pleased her to think of as her brother Monty (never more affectionately than now that she felt so desolated), was five years her senior. College not agreeing with him after his sophomore year, Monty had brought his saxophone to the jazz-market. Not quite satisfied to make a permanent profession of bouncing and writhing and puffing himself purple every night from eight until two in the front row of a dance orchestra, he had made some friends among the chalky-fingered youngsters who posted the board at a down town brokerage office. In a few months he had a desk and a small salaried position in the organization.
“I’m a broker!” he would reply maturely, when some young thing coyly inquired, while they danced, what college he attended.
Doubtless he was doing well enough now. He had not borrowed from Helen for more than a year; had given her an expensive silver vase for a wedding present, appearing on that occasion in a morning coat, striped trousers, and spats, the only man present who had given no quarter to the request for informal dress … It wasn’t a half-bad idea. There was one friend left, anyhow—good old Monty!
Another letter was a brief note, written to Joyce, by the young Merrick person, dated from Ann Arbor; evidently composed with much care. It left many things unsaid which its author assumed would be read into it. He had entered the Medical School, hopeful of becoming of some use, eventually, to the profession which her father had so conspicuously adorned.
“I never would have picked him for the part,” Joyce had interpolated, as she read that much of the letter to Helen. “Rather quixotic, don’t you think?”
“Did it on impulse, likely,” Helen had remarked.
“Rather fine of him, though—at that! Wouldn’t you say?” championed Joyce.
“I’ll tell you a year from now,” Helen had replied, half-audibly.
Joyce had continued reading to herself. With a gesture of impatience, upon finishing the letter, she tossed it across the table, and savagely dug into her grapefruit.
“I think you had better answer it, Helen. The only human, personal line in it is for you. Write and tell him you hope he gets on well with his teachers, and makes A in everything,” she snapped, with frank asperity.
The only human, personal line read, “Please convey my sympathy and regards to Mrs. Hudson, whom I hope I may soon have a chance to know.”
Helen had made no further comment. Her opinion of the Merrick person was based solely upon Joyce’s disquieting references to him—a spoiled youngster with loose habits and too much money. It was clear enough that the
