Jane looked up in alarm at Jenny’s cheerful countenance.
“Jenny,” she said quickly, “if it’s anything unpleasant—”
“It’s not really unpleasant, Mumsy,” said Jenny reassuringly. Then with a shrug of resignation, “But I rather think you’ll hate it. Last night in Boston I wrote Barbara Belmont.”
“About what?” said Jane sharply.
“About my legacy,” returned Jenny calmly. “I told her to look around for those kennels in Westchester County. I told her that, if she could square her family, I’d take a little apartment with her this spring in New York. Then we could buy the dogs and fix over the house—I hope we can find an old one—and move out the end of June. I thought we could spend the summer in Westchester and get to know our business and move back into the New York apartment in November—What’s the matter, Mumsy?” She stopped to stare in astonishment down into Jane’s agitated face.
“What’s the matter?” roared Stephen. His tone was really a roar, “Don’t talk nonsense, Jenny! You two girls can’t go off on your own and live by yourselves in a shack in the country and a flat in New York! Bill Belmont will never listen to you! It’s perfectly preposterous! It isn’t safe! Kids like you—”
“I’m twenty-six years old, Dad,” said Jenny evenly. “And I’ve just come into eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars—”
“Jenny!” said Jane warningly.
“But I have, Mumsy,” said Jenny reasonably. “And it makes all the difference. You’re just like Grandma Carver! You think it’s vulgar to talk of money. Well—I’m not talking of money. I’m talking of freedom. Sometimes I think they are one and the same thing. Look at Aunt Silly! Just look at Aunt Silly! What tied her hands, I want to know, but the purse-strings?” Jenny paused to glare triumphantly at her parents. Then went on truculently: “If you think I’m going to grow old into that kind of a spinster, you’re very much mistaken! Not with eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars! If you think I’m vulgar—”
“Jenny,” said Jane gently, “I don’t think you’re vulgar.” She paused for a moment, trying helplessly to define just what she thought Jenny was. It was very difficult, however. That reference to Silly had taken the wind out of Jane’s sails. Jenny immediately took advantage of her pause.
“Barbara and I have wanted to do this thing together ever since we left Bryn Mawr! We’ve waited five years. Five years ought to convince you and the Belmonts that we know what we’re talking about. We’re not marrying women—at least we never have been—we’re not interested in husbands—we’re interested in ourselves—”
“Jenny,” said Jane very seriously, “that sort of mutually inclusive and exclusive friendship with another girl is not very wise. It doesn’t lead to anything. It—” She paused again, as Stephen pressed her fingers. He was right, of course. Better not say too much. But—
“Oh, for Heaven’s sake!” Jenny was exclaiming disgustedly. “You make me tired! There’s nothing mutually inclusive and exclusive about Barbara and me! Do you think we’re going to dig a little Well of Loneliness? We’re not! We’re going to raise dogs! We’re going to get out from under our families! We don’t want to marry until we meet a man we fancy! In the meantime we want to be independent. If we were sons, you’d think it was all right for us to run dog kennels.”
“I shouldn’t,” put in Stephen abruptly. “If a son of mine wanted to run dog kennels, I’d think he was a damn fool!”
“Well, that’s a matter of opinion,” said Jenny very sweetly. “I like dogs. I like them, on the whole, rather better than people. I’m never going to go to another dance. I’m never going to go to another Lakewood dinner-party. I’m going to mess around in dirty tweeds in that heavenly country for eight months of the year and live very smartly in New York for the other four. I’m going to enjoy myself, as I haven’t since I left the Bryn Mawr campus. I—”
“Jenny,” said Jane, “I think we’ve had about enough of this Emancipation Proclamation. Your father and I are very tired. We’ve had a bad week.”
“Of course you have!” Jenny’s young face was suddenly alight with sympathy. “You know, Mumsy, it’s awfully hard to realize that your grandfather is your father’s father. It’s hard to realize, I mean, that Dad is just as cut up as I should be if he—if he had dropped dead at his office desk. That would kill me, Dad, it really would—” Jenny paused to look across Jane very fondly at Stephen. Jane, in her turn, promptly took advantage of the pause.
“Yet you want to live in Westchester?”
“Dad wanted to live in Chicago,” said Jenny.
“That was different,” said Jane.
“Why was it different?” flashed Jenny. She rose to her feet as she spoke.
Jane had not thought of the answer to her question before Jenny stood at the door of the compartment.
“Why was it different, Stephen?” she asked, when they were once more alone.
“Because she is a girl,” said Stephen promptly.
That was not the answer, thought Jane dumbly, her heart vaguely stirred, perhaps, by the old doctrines of President M. Carey Thomas. That was not the answer. Was the answer that now Stephen was a parent and that then he had been a child? Was that where all the difference lay? But no—this generation was something else again—it was rude—it was ruthless—it was completely self-confident. But self-confidence was a virtue. Not entirely an attractive virtue, however. More than the purse-strings had tied poor Silly’s hands. Intangible scruples. The bonds of affection. Some inner grace. Jane sat a long time in silence, her fingers once more slipped comfortingly into
