“How’s Jenny getting on?” inquired Robin abruptly. He had always admired his plain little niece.
“She loves it,” smiled Jane. And Jenny really did. Her unexpected enthusiasm for the cloisters had made Jane very happy. “She’s rooming in Pembroke with Barbara Belmont—you know, the daughter of Stephen’s friend.”
“Really?” said Isabel, a trifle incredulously. “Belmont, the banker?” At heart, Jane knew, Isabel shared her mother’s Victorian confidence in banks.
“Yes,” said Jane. “He was in Stephen’s class at Harvard.”
“Such nice girls go to college nowadays,” mused Isabel. The note of incredulity still lingered in her voice. “Your friends were so queer, Jane.”
“They certainly were,” put in Mrs. Ward with a sigh.
A little flame of adolescent resentment flashed up in Jane’s heart. She felt as if she were fourteen once more and had just bumped up against one of Isabel’s and her mother’s “opinions.” At forty-two, however, resentment was articulate.
“I don’t know what was queer about them,” she said indignantly, “unless it was queer of them to be so very able. Agnes is one of the most successful dramatists on Broadway. Her new crime play’s a wow. And Marion Park has just been appointed Dean of Radcliffe.”
“Well, I never knew Marion Park,” said Isabel doubtfully.
“But certainly no one would ever have expected Agnes Johnson to amount to anything,” said Mrs. Ward.
As she spoke, the door to the living-room opened and Cicily came out on the terrace. She was wearing a little green sport suit and carrying a roll of blueprints in her hand. She shook her dandelion head and smiled charmingly at the assembled family.
“Oh, here you are!” she said pleasantly. “Isn’t it too cold for Granny? I want to show Uncle Robin the last plans for the house.” Unrolling a blueprint, she dropped down on her knees by his chair. Cicily still looked about fourteen years old, reflected Jane, tenderly. “We want to get it started before the ground freezes—” she began. Looking up, she met her mother-in-law’s inimical eye. Something a little hard and indomitable glittered in Cicily’s own. She did not look fourteen years old any longer. “Oh, don’t tell me you’ve been arguing about it all over again!” she cried mutinously.
“My dear,” said Jane, “it’s not a thing to be lightly decided.”
“Who’s deciding it lightly?” cried Cicily hotly. “Mumsy, you make me tired.”
“Don’t talk like that, Cicily!” put in Mrs. Ward, and was again ignored.
“Aunt Isabel makes me tired!” continued Cicily. “I get so sick of all this family discussion! You act exactly as if I didn’t know what was good for Jack, myself! I’m his wife! I ought to know him by this time!”
“Cicily!” said Stephen warningly.
“Well, I do know him, Dad!” flashed Cicily, “and I’m acting for his best good! Where would engineering get him? Three years at Tech and then building bridges and tunnels and railroad embankments at some jumping-off place all the rest of his life! Me, boarding in construction camps with Molly and the twins! Not even with Molly! She wouldn’t go! What do we live for, anyway? He’s much better off in your bank, leading a civilized life in a city where everyone knows him!”
“Belle didn’t talk like that,” said Isabel reprovingly, “when Albert decided to go to Oxford.”
“Well, I shouldn’t think she would!” flashed Cicily again. “Oxford University isn’t Boston Tech! Aunt Muriel’s going to rent them a beautiful little house in that lovely country and Belle will meet a lot of distinguished people! I think Belle’s life is going to be perfectly grand! If Albert really does go into the diplomatic service. Belle will have a career! She may end up in the Court of Saint James! I’d love to be an ambassador’s lady—”
“Albert’s not an ambassador yet, Cicily,” twinkled Stephen; “he’s just succeeded with some difficulty in becoming an Oxford undergraduate.”
“It’s a step in the right direction,” said Cicily. “I wish to goodness Jack had his ambition.”
“Jack has his own ambitions,” said Stephen quietly.
“He certainly has!” retorted Cicily, “and he ought to be protected from them! You can’t tell me anything about Jack, Dad! I think he’s just as sweet as you do. He’s worth ten of Albert! But just the same he’ll never get anywhere if I don’t push him. I’m pushing him now, just as hard as I can, into your bank! It’s a splendid opening!” She paused a trifle breathlessly, then smiled very sweetly at her father. “You know you think so yourself, Dad, darling.”
Jane watched Stephen try to steel himself against that smile, then reluctantly succumb to it.
“I wouldn’t offer Jack anything, Isabel,” he said slowly, “that I didn’t think was going to turn into a pretty good thing.”
“There!” cried Cicily in triumph, “and our house is going to be perfectly ducky—”
“Cicily—” began Isabel portentously. Then even Isabel obviously saw that argument was a waste of breath. “Let me see the blueprints,” she said helplessly.
Cicily surrendered them with a forgiving smile. She rose and looked interestedly over her mother-in-law’s shoulder.
“Do you think the linen closet is large enough?” she asked tactfully.
“No, I don’t,” said Isabel judicially, “and it ought to be nearer the clothes chute.”
“I’ll have it changed,” said Cicily generously. It was the generosity of the victor.
Jane rose slowly from her seat on the parapet. She could not do anything about Cicily. She could, however, go into the house and bring out Stephen’s overcoat to wrap around her mother. As she walked across the terrace, she could see Isabel bending interestedly over the blueprints! Poor old Isabel! It was quite obvious that she had laid down her arms.
III
I
Jane stood by the piano in the Lakewood living-room, looking fixedly at the flowers that the children had sent her. Fifty Killarney roses in a great glass bowl. Time was when Jane had regarded a woman of fifty as standing with one foot in the grave. Even now she was glad that Isabel
