“Anyway, I’m going to. We’re not asking you, Mumsy, we’re telling you! It’s all settled. Belle’s talking to Aunt Isabel this minute—”
“Belle?” questioned Jane.
“Belle and Albert,” said Cicily. “Albert Lancaster. He’s told his mother. We’re going to have a double wedding, here in the garden, the last day of June.”
“A double wedding!” cried Jane and Stephen at once.
“Yes,” said Cicily calmly. “Do you think the roses will be out? We’ve planned for everything. Why, Jenny’s known about it for two weeks. She’s going to be bridesmaid for both of us. Just Jenny—but lots of ushers, with crossed swords, you know. Belle and I are going to cut the cakes with Albert’s and Jack’s sabres.”
“Cicily,” said Jane, “this is perfectly preposterous! Aunt Isabel will never listen to you! Why, Belle’s only eighteen! Albert’s not yet twenty.”
“He will be in August,” said Cicily. “I don’t see why you carry on about it like this. I don’t see why you don’t think it’s all very sweet and touching. Belle’s been my best friend all my life and now I’m marrying her brother and she’s marrying the son of one of your best friends and—”
“In the first place,” said Stephen, “you’re all first cousins.”
“Albert isn’t anybody’s first cousin,” said Cicily pertly. “So that lets Belle out. And as for Jack and me—that’s all right. We looked it all up in Havelock Ellis. There’s no danger in consanguinity if there isn’t an hereditary taint in the family. We’ve been awfully eugenic, Mumsy! We’ve simply scoured the connection for an hereditary taint! And we haven’t found a thing but Uncle Robin’s shortsightedness. Of course I’d hate to have a shortsighted baby—but maybe I wouldn’t as it’s not in the common line. Anyway, there’s no insanity, nor epilepsy, nor cancer, nor T.B., nor venereal disease—”
“Cicily,” said Stephen a little hastily, “you don’t know what you’re talking about—”
Cicily dropped Jack’s arm and sank down on the arm of her father’s chair. She kissed the bald spot on top of his head very tenderly.
“Dad, dear,” she said very sweetly, “perhaps we don’t. Perhaps you didn’t know just what you were talking about when you wanted to marry Mumsy. But still you did it. You did it and you went to war and it all came out all right. Can’t you remember how you felt when you wanted to marry Mumsy?”
Across the dandelion head Stephen’s eyes met Jane’s.
“What are we going to do with them, Jane?” he said, with a smile that was half a sigh.
“Nothing,” said Jane very practically, “at the moment. We’ll talk it over with Isabel and Robin. And Muriel, of course. I don’t suppose Bert understands much, any more, of what goes on around him, but Muriel’s always decided—”
Cicily jumped to her feet and threw her arms around Jane’s neck.
“That’s a good Mumsy!” she cried. Then, turning to Jack, “Come out in the garden, old thing! The apple tree’s still in bloom!” She seized his hand and turned toward the terrace doors.
“Cicily,” said Jane doubtfully, “nothing is settled. I don’t quite like—”
Cicily burst into indulgent laughter.
“What do you think I am, Mumsy?” she inquired cheerfully “Sweet nineteen and never been kissed? Oh, you are precious—both of you!” She tossed a kiss to her parents on the hearthrug and dragged Jack from the room. Jane watched their slim, young, khaki-clad figures romp down the lawn and disappear behind the clump of evergreens.
“Stephen,” said Jane, “it’s a very different generation. But what are we going to do?”
“I’m going to remember,” said Stephen, rising from his chair, “how I felt when I wanted to marry Mumsy!” He took her hand in his. Dear old Stephen! His eyes were just a little moist behind his bone-rimmed spectacles. Jane kissed him very tenderly.
“Just the same,” said Jane, “I wasn’t a bit like Cicily.”
“You were just as sweet,” said Stephen, “and nearly as young.”
“But I was different,” said Jane. “I know I was different.”
She sighed a little as she slipped from Stephen’s embrace.
“Well—we’ll see what Isabel has to say,” she said.
III
“I don’t see why,” said Isabel, “you object to Cicily’s marrying Jack. Poor child, he’s going to war next month. He may be killed—” Her lip was trembling.
“Well,” said Muriel, “I don’t see why you object to Belle’s marrying Albert. He’s going to war next month and he may be killed.” Muriel’s lip was not trembling. Her voice was as logical as her statement.
“Belle’s younger,” said Isabel.
“Only a year,” said Jane.
“And Belle’s different,” said Isabel. “Cicily’s always equal to any situation. She’s so much more dominating. Cicily’s one of the people you know will always come out on top. And Jack adores her. He’s always adored her.”
“Well, Albert’s one of the people you know will always come out on top,” said Muriel. “I’m sure he’s very dominating. And he’s very much in love with Belle. I can’t see why they shouldn’t be very happy.”
“Of course,” said Isabel, producing her handkerchief, “neither of them may ever come home from France.”
“But again they may,” said Jane a trifle cynically. “If they don’t, of course, I suppose a war marriage would not really hurt anyone. But if they do, they’ll have to live with each other for another fifty years or so.”
“It’s very easy to see,” said Isabel reproachfully, from the depths of the handkerchief, “that you haven’t given a son to the nation.”
Jane felt a little ashamed of her cynical utterance. It was all wrong, however, to confuse the practical issues with sentimentality. They had been discussing the problem for hours in the Lakewood living-room. Robin and Isabel and Muriel had come out for dinner in order to discuss it, and now it was half-past ten and they were no
