Much of this was news to Angela, and she would have liked to learn more about those early nocturnal discussions. But she only said, smiling, “You’re still crazy about father, aren’t you, darling?”
Her mother was wide awake in an instant. “Crazy! I’d give my life for him!”
The Saturday excursions were long since a thing of the past; Henry Ford had changed that. Also the extra work which the girls had taken upon themselves in addition to their teaching—Angela at the Academy, Virginia at the University—made Saturday afternoon a too sorely needed period of relaxation to be spent in the old familiar fashion. Still there were times when Angela in search of a new frock or intent on the exploration of a picture gallery asked her mother to accompany her. And at such times the two indulged in their former custom of having tea and a comfortable hour’s chat in the luxurious comfort of some exclusive tearoom or hotel. Mattie, older and not quite so lightly stepping in these days of comparative ease as in those other times when a week’s arduous duties lay behind her, still responded joyously to the call of fashion and grooming, the air of “good living” which pervaded these places. Moreover she herself was able to contribute to this atmosphere. Her daughters insisted on presenting her with the graceful and dainty clothes which she loved, and they were equally insistent on her wearing them. “No use hanging them in a closet,” said Jinny blithely. All her prophecies had come true—her mother had the services of a maid whenever she needed them, she went clad for the most part “in silk attire,” and she had “siller to spare” and to spend.
She was down town spending it now. The Ladies’ Auxiliary of her church was to give a reception after Lent, and Mattie meant to hold her own with the best of them. “We’re getting to be old ladies,” she said a bit wistfully, “but we’ll make you young ones look at us once or twice just the same.” Angela replied that she was sure of that. “And I know one or two little secrets for the complexion that will make it impossible for you to call yourself old.”
But those her mother knew already. However she expressed a willingness to accept Angela’s offer. She loved to be fussed over, and of late Angela had shown a tendency to rival even Jinny in this particular. The older girl was beginning to lose some of her restlessness. Life was pretty humdrum, but it was comfortable and pleasant; her family life was ideal and her time at the art school delightful. The instructor was interested in her progress, and one or two of the girls had shown a desire for real intimacy. These intimations she had not followed up very closely, but she was seeing enough of a larger, freer world to make her chafe less at the restrictions which somehow seemed to bind in her own group. As a result of even this slight satisfaction of her cravings, she was indulging less and less in brooding and introspection, although at no time was she able to adapt herself to living with the complete spontaneity so characteristic of Jinny.
But she was young, and life would somehow twist and shape itself to her subsconscious yearnings, just as it had done for her mother, she thought, following Mattie in and out of shops, delivering opinions and lending herself to all the exigencies which shopping imposed. It was not an occupation which she particularly enjoyed, but, like her mother, she adored the atmosphere and its accompaniment of well-dressed and luxuriously stationed women. No one could tell, no one would have thought for a moment that she and her mother had come from tiny Opal Street; no one could have dreamed of their racial connections. “And if Jinny were here,” she thought, slowly selecting another cake, “she really would be just as capable of fitting into all this as mother and I; but they wouldn’t let her light.” And again she let herself dwell on the fallaciousness of a social system which stretched appearance so far beyond being.
From the tearoom they emerged into the damp greyness of the March afternoon. The streets were slushy and slimy; the sky above sodden and dull. Mattie shivered and thought of the Morris chair in the minute but cosy dining-room of her home. She wanted to go to the “Y” on Catherine Street and there were two calls to make far down Fifteenth. But at last all this was accomplished. “Now we’ll get the next car and before you know it you’ll be home.”
“You look tired, Mother,” said Angela.
“I am tired,” she acknowledged, and, suddenly sagging against her daughter, lost consciousness. About them a small crowd formed, and a man passing in an automobile kindly drove the two women to a hospital in
