“Oh, it’s not necessary, Lucy. It’s not necessary. I’m going out of the house tomorrow, and if you want me to I can go today. I’ll go down town and stay at a hotel as soon as my baggage is ready.”
Lucy continued to pack in silence for several minutes.
“Not that way, Lucy. I showed you once how I wanted them folded,” complained Mrs. Merwent, interrupting the work with an impatient gesture.
“I’m doing the best I can.”
“That’s right! Lose your temper. One would think we might get along without a fuss for one day, especially as I’m going away for I don’t know how long.”
“I’m not quarreling.”
“No, but you’re so hard, Lucy. You don’t seem to have a grain of affection in your heart.”
“I don’t think I’m the only one who’s hard.”
“Why can’t you be like you used to before you left home? I do long for a little affection sometimes. You’re my only child, and I’ve tried so hard.” Nannie ceased her occupation in order to wipe her eyes. “But you are so cold and hostile! Every trifling thing is an excuse for getting angry and hurting me.” Sitting by the trunk, Mrs. Merwent began to weep. “Oh, Lucy, you are so ungrateful. I overlooked all the past and came here, and—and you’ve treated me so! I’m sure it’s not my fault. If I were at all to blame—if—why, the fact that your husband and even your own child feel kindly toward me shows I’m not. It’s only you. You are so cold and unnatural. I feel sometimes that I haven’t got any child. I’m all—alone—in the world—” and Nannie hid her face in her hands and sobbed aloud.
Lucy went on laying garments in the trunk.
“You’ve got Professor Walsh,” she said.
“Lucy!” Nannie’s tone was eloquent of reproach. “How cruel of you! How cruel—!” The sobs were redoubled. “I don’t know—that I—would ever have—thought of marrying—again, if you had been—different,” she asserted brokenly.
“How different?”
“Oh, I know it’s no use, Lucy,” Nannie spoke reproachfully, drying her eyes. “You don’t know what a daughter could mean to a mother’s heart.”
“Yes, I do,” affirmed Lucy softly, pausing in her work.
“Well, I hope if you ever have one, she won’t misunderstand you as you have me. I know how much the sympathy of my own dear mother meant to me.”
Lucy began to lay garments in the trunk again.
“Is there anything else?” she asked after a moment.
“No, but wait a minute. Let’s make up. Let’s not separate with hard feelings like this.” Nannie left the pile of clothes she was sorting and came toward her daughter. “I can’t bear to have you hate me,” she explained, tears in her eyes again.
“I don’t hate you.”
“I’m glad.” Nannie bent over Lucy. “I shall go away now feeling different. I’m sure by the next time I visit you we will have come to understand each other better.”
Lucy hastily scrambled to her feet. Murmuring something about luncheon, she almost ran from the room and down the stairs.
About two o’clock the transfer wagon came and the trunks were loaded into it. Mrs. Merwent’s expression became worried as she watched the departing motor truck.
“I’m sure that man won’t take them to the right station,” she prophesied to Lucy.
“Yes, he will. That’s the largest express company in the city. They’ll be perfectly safe.”
“The man didn’t look honest to me, Lucy.” But Lucy had left the hall.
Nannie was still at the front door when John opened the gate.
“I came early,” he remarked in an undertone as he greeted her.
“Yes. It’s our last evening, John,” answered Nannie sorrowfully. “I’ve just been telephoning Miss Powell to say goodbye. She says she’s coming to the station in the morning to see me off.”
“That’s nice,” he commented indifferently.
He regarded her careful toilette and the white rose in her belt with melancholy approval.
“I’m all in over this thing, Nannie,” he told her, lowering his voice confidentially. His face evidenced his perturbation.
“Dear John! I know!” She squeezed his arm. “Did you tell Mr. Sprague I was going?” she inquired abruptly a little later.
“Yes,” answered John.
“What did he say?”
“He said that you had made quite a long visit.”
“He didn’t say he was coming to the station, did he?”
“No, he didn’t say anything else about it.”
“Do you know, John, Mr. Sprague hasn’t even treated me with common ordinary courtesy since I’ve been here?”
“Don’t you worry, Nannie. He’ll hear from me about it, all right. Jim Sprague has changed. He’s not the man he used to be at all.”
“I don’t think he ever was a true friend to you, John.”
“Well, I’ve got my eyes open at last, Nannie—thanks to you.”
“Oh, John, if I didn’t have to think about how Lucy is treating you. She—she’s not—her morbidness is really bad for Jimmie, too. But then you bear everything so nobly. You are—oh, I don’t know what to call it! If all men had your patience and forbearance this world would be a very different place for some of us. I appreciate it for her if she don’t for herself.” There was a catch in Nannie’s voice.
“You’ve had nothing from me you don’t deserve, Nannie.” John did not look at her as he spoke.
“I’ve always tried to help you and study your interests, John. I feel so grateful to you. I’ll never forget how kind and good you’ve been to me. You’ve been better than anyone else in the world—”
“I don’t see how anybody could help being good to you, Nannie.”
At this juncture Lucy appeared on the stairs with Dimmie. Almost simultaneously Katy thrust her head through the dining room doorway.
“Dinnah’s ready, Miss Nannie. Kin I put it on de table?” she inquired.
“Don’t ask me, Katy,” said Nannie peevishly. “Mrs. Winter is your mistress. You’ll have to ask her.”
“Yes, Katy, you may serve dinner,” Lucy put in quietly.
Just as the family were seating themselves there was a clap of thunder. Katy waddled from one window
