Emilius stroked his beard.
“That’s right. Stroke your beard as if nothing mattered but your pleasure. You’ll be happy enough when Mark’s gone.”
Emilius left off stroking his beard.
“You say I turned him out of the office,” he said. “Did he stay with Edward?”
“Nobody could stay with Edward. You couldn’t yourself.”
“Ask Victor how long he thinks he’ll keep him.”
“What do you mean, Emilius?”
He didn’t answer. He stood there, his lips pouting between his moustache and beard, his eyes smiling wickedly, as if he had just found out he could torment her more by not saying what he meant.
“If Dan went to the bad,” she said, “I wouldn’t blame him. It would serve you right.
“Unless,” she added, “that’s what you want.”
And she began to cry.
She cried as a child cries, with spasms of sobbing, her pretty mouth spoiled, stretched wide, working, like india-rubber; dull red blotches creeping up to the brown stains about her eyes. Her tears splashed on to the fine, black silk web of the sock and sparkled there.
Emilius had gone from the room, leaving the door open. Mary got up and shut it. She stood, hesitating. The helpless sobbing drew her, frightened her, stirred her to exasperation that was helpless too. Her mother had never been more intolerably dear.
She went to her. She put her arm round her.
“Don’t, Mamma darling. Why do you let him torture you? He didn’t turn Dan out of the office. He let him go because he can’t afford to pay him enough.”
“I know that as well as you,” her mother said surprisingly.
She drew herself from the protecting arm.
“Well, then—But, oh, what a brute he is. What a brute!”
“For shame to talk that way of your father. You’ve no right. You’re the one that always goes scot-free.”
And, beginning to cry again, she rose and went out, grasping Mark’s sock in her convulsive hand.
“Mary, did you hear your mother say I bullied you?”
Her father had come back into the room.
“Yes,” she said.
“Have I ever bullied you?”
She looked at him steadily.
“No. You would have done if Mamma had loved me as much as she loves Mark. I wish you had. I wish you’d bullied the life out of me. I shouldn’t have cared. I wish you’d hated me. Then I should have known she loved me.”
He looked at her in silence, with round, startled eyes. He understood.
II
“Ubique—”
The gunner’s motto. Mark’s motto, stamped on all the letters he would write. A blue gun on a blue gun-carriage, the muzzle pointing to the left. The motto waving underneath: “Ubique.”
At soldiers’ funerals the coffin was carried on a gun-carriage and covered with a flag.
“Ubique quo fas et gloria ducunt.” All through the excitement of the evening it went on sounding in her head.
It was Mark’s coming of age party in the week before he went. The first time she could remember being important at a party. Her consciousness of being important was intense, exquisite. She was Sublieutenant Mark Olivier’s sister. His only one.
And, besides, she looked nice.
Last year’s white muslin, ironed out, looked as good as new. The blue sash really was new; and Mamma had lent her one of her necklets, a turquoise heart on a thin gold chain. In the looking-glass she could see her eyes shining under her square brown fringe: spots of gold darting through brown crystal. Her brown hair shone red on the top and gold underneath. The side pieces, rolled above her ears and plaited behind, made a fillet for her back hair. Her back hair was too short. She tried to make it reach to her waist by pulling the curled tips straight; but they only sprang back to her shoulder-blades again. It was unfortunate.
Catty, securing the wonderful fillet with a blue ribbon told her not to be unhappy. She would “do.”
Mamma was beautiful in her lavender-grey silk and her black jet cross with the diamond star. They all had to stand together, a little behind her, near the door, and shake hands with the people as they came in. Mary was surprised that they should shake hands with her before they shook hands with Mark; it didn’t seem right, somehow, when it was his birthday.
Everybody had come except Aunt Charlotte; even Mr. Marriott, though he was supposed to be afraid of parties. (You couldn’t ask Aunt Charlotte because of Mr. Marriott.) There were the two Manistys, looking taller and leaner than ever. And there was Mrs. Draper with Dora and Effie. Mrs. Draper, black hawk’s eyes in purple rings; white powder over crushed carmines; a black wing of hair folded over grey down. Effie’s pretty, piercing face; small head poised to strike. Dora, a young likeness of Mrs. Draper, an old likeness of Effie, pretty when Effie wasn’t there.
When they looked at you you saw that your muslin was not as good as new. When they looked at Mamma you saw that her lavender silk was old-fashioned and that nobody wore black jet crosses now. You were frilly and floppy when everybody else was tight and straight in Princess dresses.
Mamma was more beautiful than Mrs. Draper; and her hair, anyhow, was in the fashion, parted at the side, a soft brown wing folded over her left ear.
But that made her look small and pathetic—a wounded bird. She ought not to have been made to look like that.
You could hear Dora and Effie being kind to Mamma. “Dear Mrs. Olivier”—Indulgence—Condescension. As if to an unfortunate and rather foolish person. Mark could see that. He was smiling: a hard, angry smile.
Mrs. Draper was Mamma’s dearest friend. They could sit and talk to each other about nothing
