“Well, she’s never said that to me,” said Cicily. “And she’s never had the nerve to say it to Albert either. Do you know what she said to Albert?” Cicily’s voice was rising excitedly. “She told Albert to take me for his mistress. She told Albert she didn’t care what he did, if he wouldn’t ask for divorce!”
“She was thinking of the children,” said Jane defensively.
“Bunk!” said Cicily succinctly. She rose, as she spoke, from the little French sofa. “It would be fine for my children, wouldn’t it? A situation like that? Jack’s been great about it, Mumsy. He really has. He didn’t talk like that.”
“Where is he?” said Jane. “I’d like to speak to him.”
“He moved out yesterday,” said Cicily calmly. “He’s living at the University Club.”
“Oh, Cicily!” said Jane pitifully.
For the first time in this distressing interview, Cicily herself seemed slightly shaken. She walked across the room and stood with her back to Jane, fingering the white and yellow heads of the jonquils and narcissus in the window-boxes. Her hands were trembling a little.
“I won’t say, Mumsy,” she said—and her voice was slightly tremulous—“I won’t say that it wasn’t a bad moment when he left this house. But it’s always a bad moment when you go up to the operating room. And for divorce they can’t give you ether. I wish they could. I wish we could all just go to sleep and wake up when it was safely over.” She turned from the window-boxes to face her mother. “It will be safely over, Mumsy. I’m not going to weaken. I’m not going to be sentimental.” She took her stand on the hearthrug and looked firmly at Jane. “It’s utter nonsense to think that if you love one man you can be happy living with another. You don’t understand that, Mumsy, because you’ve always loved Dad. There never was anyone else. If there had been—” Cicily’s voice trailed suddenly off into silence. She was staring at Jane. “Mumsy!” she cried quickly. “Don’t tell me there ever was anyone else? Mumsy! was there?”
“Yes,” said Jane soberly. Suddenly she felt very near to Cicily. It seemed important to tell her the whole truth. “Yes. There was.”
Cicily’s face was alight with sympathy. “Before Dad, Mumsy—or after?”
Jane suddenly felt that the whole truth could not be told. “B-before,” she said.
Cicily looked at her. “And after, Mumsy? Never after?”
Jane’s eyes fell before her daughter’s. “Once,” she said.
“Mumsy!” cried Cicily. “Tell me! I never—”
“I don’t want to tell you,” said Jane.
“Did you tell Dad?”
“No,” said Jane.
“Mumsy!” cried Cicily. “Did you really deceive him?”
“I deceived him,” said Jane soberly.
“My God!” said Cicily. “When and how?”
“Oh, long ago,” said Jane. “And just as everyone else does, I suppose. I loved a man who loved me. And when he told me, I told him. And I—I said I’d go away with him. But I didn’t.”
“What next?” said Cicily.
“Nothing next,” said Jane.
“Was that all?” said Cicily.
“Yes,” said Jane.
“You didn’t go away with him, nor—nor—you know, Mumsy—you didn’t—without going away?”
“I didn’t.”
“You just loved him, and didn’t?”
“Yes.”
“And you call that deception?”
“I call that deception,” said Jane.
Cicily’s eyes were unbelievably twinkling. “Mumsy,” she said, “is that all the story?”
“That’s all the story,” said Jane.
Cicily drew a long breath. “Well, I believe you,” she said. “But I don’t know why I do. Resisted temptations become lost opportunities, Mumsy. Haven’t you always regretted it?”
“I’ve never regretted it,” said Jane.
“Not the loving, of course,” said Cicily, “but the not going away.”
“Not that either,” said Jane.
“Mumsy,” said Cicily, “you are simply incredible. You are not civilized. You have the morals of the Stone Age! I should think an experience like that would make you see how wise I am to take my happiness—”
“You don’t achieve happiness,” said Jane very seriously, “by taking it.”
“How do you know?” said Cicily promptly. “You never tried!”
“I’ve always been happy,” said Jane with dignity, “with your father.”
“I can’t believe that, Mumsy. Not after what you’ve told me.”
“Well, I’m happy now,” said Jane. “Much happier now than if—”
“But that’s what you don’t know, Mumsy!” said Cicily, smiling. “And what I’ll never know either. You have to choose in life!”
Jane rose slowly from the little French sofa. “Cicily,” she said, “how can I stop you?”
“You can’t,” said Cicily.
It was terribly true.
“But you can love me,” said Cicily. She walked quickly across the room and took Jane in her arms. “You can love me always. You will love me, won’t you, Mumsy—whatever happens?”
Jane felt the hot tears running down her cheeks.
“Cicily!” she cried. “I love you—terribly. I want to help you—I want to save you! I want you to be happy, but I know you won’t be!”
“I shall be for a while,” said Cicily cheerfully. “And after that we’ll see.”
It was on that philosophic utterance that Jane left her. When she reached her living-room again, she found Jack standing on the hearthrug. He was facing Isabel and Stephen a trifle belligerently. He looked tired and worn and worried. He had no smile for Jane.
“I know you think, sir,” he was saying wearily, “that I ought to be able to keep her—that I ought to refuse to let her go. But how can I? You can’t insist on living with a woman who doesn’t want to live with you—if you love her, you can’t.”
“Well, Jane?” said Isabel. “Did you make any headway?”
Jane shook her head.
“Jack,” she said slowly, “I’m ashamed of my daughter.”
Jack threw her a little twisted smile. “Don’t say that, Aunt Jane. I’m proud of my wife. I always have been and I can’t break the habit. Cicily’s all right. She’ll pull through. We’ll all pull through, somehow.”
“But what will you do, Jack?” wailed Isabel.
“I haven’t thought it out,” said Jack. “But you can always do something. The world is wide, you know.” He looked, rather hesitatingly, at Stephen. “I thought I’d leave the bank, sir, for a time, at any rate.” That would be hard on Stephen, thought Jane swiftly. “I’d like to take up my engineering. I want to leave
