“And the elms all cut down,” said Flora sympathetically, “when they widened the street.”
“But Mamma likes it,” said Jane. “She likes the old house—”
“And Isabel’s near her. She comes out here for the weekends. I don’t know what she’ll do when we go to Gull Rocks.”
“You’re going to Gull Rocks?” asked Flora.
“We have to,” said Jane. “We really have to, Stephen’s mother counts on it. And I’ve promised Cicily that she and Jack could have this house for the summer, while they’re deciding what to do. Stephen’s going to celebrate his fiftieth birthday by taking a two months’ vacation.”
“Why don’t you go abroad?” asked Flora.
“Stephen would rather sail that catboat,” smiled Jane.
“Jane, you’ve been a saint about Gull Rocks all these years,” said Flora earnestly. “I couldn’t stand it for a week.”
Yet Flora had stood Mr. Furness for twenty years, thought Jane. Stood that life, spent junketing about with a cribbage board in trains de luxe! Stood those expensive hotels in London and Paris and Rome and Madrid and Carlsbad and Biarritz and Dinard and Benares and Tokyo!
“You’ve been the saint. Flora!” said Jane.
As she spoke Molly appeared, pushing the double perambulator around the clump of evergreens at the foot of the garden. She paused beneath the apple tree, put on the brake, and sat down on the green bench. Molly was Cicily’s impeccable English nursemaid. She was infallible with the twins and very firm with Cicily. She liked Jane, however.
“Come and look at the babies,” said Jane.
The twins, very plump and pink and as alike as two pins, were blinking up at the June sunlight through the boughs of the apple tree. Molly had risen respectfully at Jane’s approach. She had beautiful British manners.
“Aren’t they funny?” said Flora. “They look so clean. And somehow so—brand-new.”
“They are brand-new,” said Jane proudly. She stroked John Ward’s velvety cheek with a proprietary finger. He responded immediately with a vague, toothless, infinitely touching smile and a spasmodic gesture of his small pink-sweatered arms.
“Sometimes he has a dimple,” said Jane.
“They’re prettier than Belle’s little girl,” said Flora. “I hoped she was going to look like Muriel. But she doesn’t.”
“She looks like Belle,” said Jane. “Belle was a homely baby.”
“She’s lovely now,” said Flora.
“Oh, lovely,” said Jane.
“Cicily’s lovely, too,” said Flora.
“Yes,” said Jane.
“And so young,” said Flora wistfully.
“And so happy,” said Jane. “They’re both so happy since the boys came home.”
“Jane,” said Flora solemnly, as they turned to leave the garden, “do you find that looking at the younger generation makes you think of your own life?”
“Yes,” said Jane, a bit uncertainly.
“It makes me think of lost opportunities,” said Flora—“chances that will never come again.” They strolled across the lawn for a moment in silence. Then Flora spoke once more, this time a trifle tremulously: “Do you know, Jane, that I’ve never been happy—happy like that, I mean—except for just the ten days that I was engaged to Inigo Fellowes.”
“I’m afraid,” said Jane slowly, as they ascended the terrace steps, “that no one’s ever happy like that for very long.”
“But for longer than ten days,” said Flora, still solemnly, “and maybe more than once. Inigo’s still very happy with his wife.”
“I didn’t know he had a wife,” said Jane.
“Oh, yes,” said Flora. “He’s been married for twelve years. I met him in Paris during the war, you know. He’d lost a leg and was being shipped back to Australia. He lives there now. He showed me a picture of his two sons.”
Jane wondered why Inigo had felt he had to do that. It seemed a bit unnecessary. Though Flora, no doubt, had been wonderful about them.
“You’ve had such a—a normal life, Jane,” said Flora, as they ascended the terrace steps. “You’ve always been so happy with Stephen.”
“Yes,” said Jane evenly, “Stephen’s a darling.”
“And now you have the children—to amuse you always.”
“Children,” said Jane doubtfully, “don’t always amuse you.”
“Don’t they?” said Flora. “I should think they would.”
“Well, they don’t,” said Jane.
She kissed Flora goodbye very tenderly in the front hall. She stood on the doorstep and watched her motor recede down the gravel path. The passing of Flora meant a great deal to Jane. She would miss her frightfully. Her oldest friend. Except Muriel, who was, of course, so much less—less friendly. Not a friend like Agnes, of course. But Agnes was in New York. And now Flora would be in Paris. She might never see her again. With Stephen feeling the way he did about Gull Rocks, she might never go to Paris. Flora would meet André there. Flora would probably come to know André very well again—
The striking of the clock in the hall behind her recalled Jane to a sense of the present. Six o’clock. Jenny ought to be home on the five-fifty. She was in town taking her College Entrance Board physics examination for Bryn Mawr. Jane was glad that she was going there. It had been hard to convince her that she should. Jenny cared very little for Bryn Mawr, but she cared even less for a social début. It was with the single idea of postponing that distressing event that Jenny had embraced the thought of a college education. Jenny was a girl’s girl, pure and simple. So unlike Cicily, who had always had a crowd of boys about the house—But where was Cicily? She should be home that minute, nursing the twins. She was probably out on the golf links. Stephen and Jack would be back from the bank on the five-fifty. Jane had tried in vain to impress on Cicily the elementary fact that she ought to be home before Jack every evening. To precede your husband to the conjugal hearth at nightfall had always seemed to Jane the primary obligation of matrimony. But Cicily had said she should worry! Suddenly she whirled around the bushes at the entrance of the driveway in her little Ford roadster. Her hat was off and her yellow bob was blowing in the
