For all answer Mrs. Tracy opened her handbag (it was the very one the bridal couple had bought for her on their return to Paul’s Landing), and put the glove in it, snapping shut the imitation ivory clasp.
“See here—give me that glove,” Vance burst out; then crimsoned at his blunder. Mrs. Tracy tucked the bag under her arm. “I’ll see to returning it,” she said.
He affected indifference. “Oh, very well—” There was a pause, and then he added. “If that’s all, I’ll be off.”
Mrs. Tracy, however, continued to oppose him from the threshold. “It’s not all—nothing like. I guess it’s for me to decide about that.”
Vance waited a moment: angry as he was, he had the sense to want to check Mrs. Tracy’s recriminations. “If there’s anything else to be said, I guess it’s for Laura Lou to say it. I’m going back home now to give her the chance,” he declared.
Mrs. Tracy raised her hand in agitation. “No, Vance—no! You won’t do that. The letter’s half killed her, anyway. And you know she can’t stand anything that excites and worries her. …” She paused a moment, and added with a certain dignity: “That’s why I came here—it was to spare her.”
Vance pondered. “Was it her idea that you should come?”
“No, she doesn’t even know I’m here. I told her we’d have to take steps to find out—but she was so upset she wouldn’t listen. My child’s a nervous wreck, Vance. That’s what you’ve made of her.”
“If I’ve made her a nervous wreck, is it your idea that it’s going to quiet her if you go back and report—as you apparently mean to do—that I come here to meet other women?”
The reasoning of this was a little too close for Mrs. Tracy’s flurried brain. She considered it for a while, and then said: “I didn’t come here to go back and report to her.”
Vance looked at her in astonishment. “Then what on earth did you come for? Your imagination is so worked up against me that all my denials wouldn’t convince you—I see that. But if Laura Lou’s to be left out of the question—”
His mother-in-law moved nearer to him, with a look of appeal in her face that made it human again. “It all depends on you, Vance.”
“Well, you don’t suppose—”
“I don’t suppose you want to hurt Laura Lou more than you can help—any more than I do,” she continued, with an effort at persuasiveness. “And what I’m here for is to ask you to spare her … give her a chance … before it’s too late. …” She lifted her hands entreatingly. “For God’s sake, Vance, let her go without a fight. It’s her chance now, and I mean she shall take it; but if you’ll let it be easy for her, I’ll let it be easy for you—on my sacred word. Vance … See here; I’ve got you where I can make my own terms with you … I’ve got my proofs … I’ve got the whip hand of as they say …” She broke off, and went on in an altered voice: “But that’s not the way I want to talk to you, Vance. I just want to say: Why not recognize it’s all been a failure and a mistake from the first, and set my child free before it’s too late?”
“Too late for what?”
“For her to get back her health—to enjoy her youth as she ought to. …”
Vance’s brain was still so confused with the shock of Mrs. Tarrant’s abrupt leave-taking that this fresh assault on his emotions left him dazed. Mrs. Tracy hated him; had always hated him. He had long been carelessly aware of that, and had instantly seen how eagerly she must have caught at this chance of getting the whip hand of him, as she called it; of finding herself justified in all her disappointments and resentments. But he had not suspected that she might have a more practical object in mind, that what she wanted was not to injure him but to free Laura Lou. It was dull of him, no doubt, it was incomprehensible even, that, having lived all his life in a world of painless divorce, where a change of mate was often a mere step in social advancement, it should never have occurred to him that he and Laura Lou could part. But though he had often chafed at the bondage of his unconsidered marriage, though he had long since ceased to think of his wife as the companion of his inner life, and had stooped to subterfuges to escape her fond solicitude … yet now her mother’s proposal filled him with speechless wrath. He and Laura Lou divorced! … He turned to Mrs. Tracy. “Are you talking seriously?”
Of course she was, she said. Wouldn’t he try and understand her and listen to her, and not get all worked up, and make her so nervous she couldn’t get out what she had to say … ?
“Have to say?” he interrupted. “Who obliges you? You say Laura Lou doesn’t know you’re here.”
Mrs. Tracy’s embarrassment increased. When Vance flew out at her like that, she said, she couldn’t keep her wits together; and what was to be gained by making a fuss, anyhow? She was determined, whatever he said, that her child should be free to make a fresh start, and get back her health and spirits. … She talked on and on in the same half scared yet obstinate tone. They’d been married too young, she said; that had always been her chief objection to the match. And Vance with no fixed prospects … or not enough to support a wife on, anyhow … and his parents doing nothing … and Laura Lou’s health so delicate, and her lungs threatened since that crazy
