I

Jane sat, relaxed and weary, in the arms of a wing chair in the front parlour of the Carvers’ house on Beacon Street, thinking soberly of the perfect end of her father-in-law’s life. Sudden death, at eighty-eight, in his office chair. No pain, no partings, no illness nor foreboding. It was hard on the family, however. It had been a great shock to Stephen. It had been a shock to the children, curiously enough, for they had never seemed to care much for their grandfather. In latter years he had been a very irascible old gentleman.

Across the room, uncomfortably erect, Cicily and Jenny were perched on the slippery black horsehair upholstery of a mahogany sofa. Their bright young blondness was accentuated by their sombre mourning. They looked subdued and preternaturally grave, however. Stephen, who seemed, Jane thought, unspeakably tired, was sitting in a stiff-backed Sheraton chair in the middle of the room, absently staring over his daughters’ heads at a large steel engraving, The Return of the Mayflower, that hung over the mahogany sofa. Young Steve was standing by the white marble mantelpiece. His eyes were wandering, with a faint twinkle of amusement, from the glass dome of wax flowers on top of it to the great jar of dried grasses, combined with peacock feathers, that adorned the hearth at his feet. Mrs. Carver never had a fire in the front parlour. Jane knew he was longing for a cigarette and hoped he would refrain from lighting one. Old Mr. Carver had never held with cigarettes⁠—“coffin nails,” he had called them⁠—and Mrs. Carver only allowed Alden to smoke his in the big brown library that overlooked the river.

Alden himself was pacing up and down the room, skirting the old mahogany rockers and marble-topped tables and plush-covered footstools with care. The furniture in the Carvers’ front parlour was oddly assorted. The Colonial period rubbed elbows with the Victorian age. There were several good eighteenth-century pieces that had been in the family for generations and, mingled with them, were the rosewood parlour suite that Mrs. Carver had bought in the first year of her marriage, and a triple-tiered black walnut whatnot that had been left to Mr. Carver in the will of a favourite sister, and an old cerise plush armchair, with a fringe of braided tassels, where Mr. Carver always used to sit, and a large glass cabinet of Chinese Chippendale design, in which were displayed a collection of curios assembled by long-dead Carvers in the course of their voyages on the whale-ships and merchantmen that had carried them over the seven seas⁠—ivory pie-cutters and paper-knives and bodkins, a set of Chinese beads which included a jade necklace that Cicily had always coveted, a tiny model of a clipper ship, miraculously erect in a small-necked rum bottle, tortoiseshell snuffboxes, ebony chessmen, sandalwood fans, a bronze Javanese gong of intricate pattern, and a small marble replica of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Also a first edition of Oliver Wendell Holmes’s The School Boy, personally autographed and inscribed to Mr. Carver by Mr. Holmes.

Jane liked the funny cluttered room, however. She liked the old incongruous furniture and the silly curios and The Return of the Mayflower. She liked the sense of the past that curiously consecrated this ridiculous collection of inanimate objects that people had cared for and loved. No modern decorator could catch it, she thought, no matter how passionate his preoccupation with antiquity.

“Where is Mother?” said Alden suddenly.

Alden seemed a trifle out of humour. Tired, of course. Fearfully tired. They had all just returned from the service in the cemetery and Mrs. Carver had gone upstairs with Silly to take off her bonnet, in preparation for the Reading of the Will, in the front parlour. The Reading of the Will was a ceremony that all proper Carvers felt should follow a burial as day follows dawn. Jane had thought, considering how exhausted they all were and how long that Unitarian minister had prayed his impromptu prayers, that it would be just as well to defer it until the next morning. But Alden, as head of the family, had been adamant. And Mrs. Carver had thought it would be only correct. And Stephen had said that they might as well get it over. And Silly had murmured that it did not seem quite respectful to wait.

As Alden spoke, Mrs. Carver and Silly came into the parlour. Her mother-in-law, at eighty-four, Jane thought, was a very miraculous old lady. What a strain she had been under, what a shock she had sustained⁠—the tragic termination of sixty-three years of marriage! Yet Mrs. Carver, as she entered the room, looked just as she had looked for the last ten years. She wore her familiar house gown of loose black silk. Mrs. Carver thought extremes were very foolish. She had not gone in for widow’s weeds. Her little white collar was fastened by a mourning pin of black jet. It was the only concession she had made to the solemnity of the day. She had told Jane, before setting out for the cemetery, that she had worn that pin to the funeral of her mother in eighteen-seventy-nine. Beneath the straight parting of her thin white hair, her face looked only a little tired and rather worried than sad. Jane soon saw what was worrying her. She walked straight across the room and pulled down one window shade until it was even with the other. A grief-stricken parlour maid, Jane thought with a smile, in raising them after the family had left the house for the funeral, had had no thought for the critical eyes across Beacon Street. Mrs. Carver turned and faced her family.

“Alden,” she said, “you look tired. Would you like a glass of port?”

Alden shook his head. He produced an imposing-looking document from the inside pocket of his cutaway.

“Stephen,” continued Mrs. Carver, “you’re not comfortable in that stiff chair. You’d better take your father’s. Sit down, Steve, and don’t fidget about.” She had seated herself, as she spoke, in the seat that Stephen had abandoned. Jane rose, with a gesture toward her own armchair. “No, Jane, I like a straight back. Now, Alden, find a nice place for yourself with a good light. Silly! Turn on the lamp for Alden. Can you see, dear? Then I think we’re quite ready.”

As Alden unfolded his imposing document, Silly sank down on a footstool beside his chair, her lank figure relaxed in lines of complete fatigue. In the folds of her new mourning Silly really looked as old as Mrs. Carver, thought Jane. Her hair was just as white and her face infinitely more weary. Two old ladies⁠—mother and daughter! It was a shame about Silly. She had never had a life. She had never even achieved one carefree summer with Susan Frothingham, one trip abroad alone, one spree, one careless burst of freedom to enjoy and remember. Susan Frothingham had been dead for seven years, carried off by a gust of pneumonia in the flu epidemic of nineteen-twenty. It was a shame about Silly. But Alden was clearing his throat. He was looking at them all very solemnly through his pince-nez eyeglasses over the top of the imposing document.

The assembled Carvers stirred a trifle uneasily. A faint, tense thrill seemed to run around the room. The best, the most grief-stricken of families, Jane thought with a smile, were not quite impervious to the dramatic suspense of the moment in which a will is read. But Alden was speaking.

“I was made the executor of this will,” he was saying, and surely there was a hint of irritation in his voice, “but I never knew anything about its contents until yesterday morning, when I found it in Father’s safety-deposit box. He made it twelve years ago, just after Uncle Stephen’s death.”

Alden paused to adjust his eyeglasses, and again the assembled Carvers stirred a trifle uneasily. A dreadful phrase from the pen of John Galsworthy flashed through Jane’s mind. “Old Soames Forsyte would cut up a very warm man.” Old Mr. Carver would cut up a very warm man, also. But Jane felt curiously detached from the provisions of his testament. Stephen had more money, now, than Jane could spend the income on. And a Carver would always leave his fortune to Carvers. Soon Stephen would have too much money. Too much money to leave, in his turn, to his children. But that day, fortunately, thought Jane with a glance at Cicily, would not come soon. But Alden had resumed.

“The first provision, I am happy to say and you will all be happy to hear”⁠—Alden’s voice had brightened a trifle⁠—“is the foundation of a trust fund of one hundred thousand dollars for Aunt Marie, the interest on which is to continue the allowance that Father had been making her since the death of Uncle Stephen, the principal to go, on her death, to Harvard College, to form the nucleus of a Stephen Carver Memory Fund, the purpose of which will be to purchase books and manuscripts for the Department of Reformation Drama, of which Uncle Stephen so long held the chair.”

Why, Alden was making a speech, thought Jane irreverently, as the Carvers about her moved and murmured their gratified approbation. But that was nice for Aunt Marie. She was a bedridden old lady, now, in a Cambridge flat. “I must remember,” thought Jane to herself, “to go to see her tomorrow.” But Alden was again speaking.

Jane listened, absently, to the elaborate phrases that rolled from his lips. He was reading from the document, now, and it was all frightfully legal. Jane caught the gist of it, however. It was quite as she had thought. A Carver would always leave his fortune to Carvers. The estate was large, but no larger than Jane had expected. It was a simple will. Jane automatically checked off the bequests in her mind as they were read.

One million dollars outright to Alden and one million dollars outright to Stephen. One million dollars left in trust with Alden and Stephen, the income of which was to be expended on Mrs. Carver for her lifetime and to be expended on Silly after her death. Poor old Silly! How like Mr. Carver to leave sixty-year-old Silly⁠—not a nickel outright, but a deferred million in trust! Alden’s voice was rolling on.

It was the wish of the testator that Mrs. Carver should keep up the Beacon Street house and the place at Gull Rocks just as they had been kept in the testator’s lifetime, and that Silly should keep them up after her death. On the death of Silly, Alden, and Stephen, both houses were to go to young Steve, “the last perpetuator of the Carver name.” When all debts were paid and some minor bequests to the servants attended to, the residue of the estate, if any, was to be divided between Mr. Carver’s three grandchildren, Cicily, Jenny, and Steve.

A proper Carver will, thought Jane. And exactly like her father-in-law. One hundred thousand dollars to Harvard College and three million to Carvers. All debts paid, poor relations pensioned, old servants remembered, and Silly ignored. Exactly like her father-in-law. Jane hoped that Silly would come into the income of that million before she was seventy. She hoped she would make ducks and drakes of it when she did. But no⁠—she would undoubtedly save it for Stephen’s children. For Silly was a Carver.

At all events, the will did not affect her life, thought Jane. She felt curiously indifferent to the possession of that added million. There was a little awkward pause when Alden had finished speaking. It was broken by Mrs. Carver.

“Thank you, Alden,” she said simply.

“I never realized,” said Silly⁠—and her voice was slightly shaken⁠—“I never realized that Father had so much money.”

“Why should you have realized it?” said Mrs. Carver sharply. “Money is not to be spoken of.” Mrs. Carver still talked to Silly as if she were a child. Her dignified reproof put a sudden quietus on further discussion of the will.

“I’m going to take a walk,” declared Steve abruptly.

Cicily’s and Jenny’s eyes met his. Cicily, Jane thought, looked a trifle downcast. The three children rose simultaneously to their feet.

“We’ll go with you,” said Jenny.

“Don’t be late for supper,” said Mrs. Carver. She smiled very kindly up at Silly, who had risen from the footstool and was standing patiently by her chair. “I think I’ll lie down now, but I don’t feel like sleeping, I wish you’d come up and read the Transcript to me, Silly.”

Mother and daughter left the room. The children turned toward the door.

“It’s all right for them to go, isn’t it, Stephen?” asked Jane. “I mean⁠—it won’t create a scandal if anyone sees them carousing up Beacon Street?”

“Well⁠—I shouldn’t advise them to carouse,” smiled Stephen.

“I should hope not!” put in Alden.

“We won’t carouse!” twinkled Jenny. “We’ll walk very discreetly.”

“We’ll walk lugubriously,” said Steve cheerfully, “if Uncle Alden thinks we’d better.”

Alden did not stoop to reply.

“Get along with you!” said Stephen, still smiling. When they had left the room, however, and he had turned to Alden, his face was very grave. Alden was folding up the document and putting it back into the inside pocket of his cutaway. Stephen walked over to him and stood for a moment at his side in silence. Then, “I’m sorry, Alden,” he said.

Caught by the gravity of his tone, Jane looked quickly up at him. Alden did not speak for a moment. When he did, his voice was thickened with emotion.

“Father⁠—Father wasn’t quite himself these last years. If he had been he would have realized.”

“Of course he would,” said Stephen warmly.

“He would have changed it,” said Alden, still in that thickened voice.

“What are you talking about?” cried Jane sharply. She rose from her chair as she spoke and walked to Stephen’s side.

“We⁠—we’ve rather walked off with the lion’s share, Jane,” said Stephen quietly. “We and ours.”

“I don’t understand,” said Jane.

Alden turned on her almost belligerently.

“Don’t you know what bank stocks have been doing in the last ten years?” he inquired angrily. “Since Father made that will the estate’s doubled. In nineteen-fifteen the residue was worth about fifty thousand dollars. And now your children are going to come into a cool three million⁠—or nearly that.”

He stopped abruptly. He stared, astonished, at Jane’s horrified face.

“Stephen,” she said faintly, “Stephen⁠—that’s not true, is it?”

Stephen nodded gravely.

“It’s rather rough on Alden⁠—and on Silly, too, of course.”

Then he, too, stopped, for Jane had suddenly begun to cry.

“Oh, Stephen⁠—Stephen⁠—can’t anything be done?”

“I’m afraid not, darling.” His arms were around her. She was sobbing rather wildly.

“Don’t take it like that, Jane,” said Alden kindly. He pulled himself together. “It⁠—it’s not so very important.”

“You don’t know!” cried Jane. “You don’t know⁠—anything about it!”

Alden let that insult pass unchallenged. He was rapidly revising his opinion of his sister-in-law. She had never seemed to him an hysterical woman. But this stroke of luck had quite unbalanced her.

“You don’t know anything!” she kept repeating. “You don’t know anything, either of you! You don’t know anything at all!”

II

On looking back on the first few weeks that followed her father-in-law’s death, Jane was always most impressed by the astounding efficiency of her children. The explosive efficiency of her children. Jane felt as if the dead hand of Mr. Carver had pulled the corks from the three bottles of extremely effervescent champagne. Event followed event with catastrophic rapidity.

It was young Steve who threw the first bomb. He threw it in Boston the day after his grandfather’s funeral, just two hours after he had heard of his legacy. He walked in abruptly on Alden and Stephen and Jane, who were discussing the questions of inheritance tax and probate in the old brown library that overlooked the river.

“The contents of both houses must be appraised immediately,” Alden was saying, when his nephew entered the room.

“Am I interrupting?” said Steve amiably. “I want to ask Uncle Alden a question.”

“I’ve told you everything I know about that bequest already,” said Alden, with that faint hint of irritation in his tone.

“This isn’t about the bequest,” said Steve cheerfully. “And it’s a very simple question. Have you got a job for me?”

“A job for you?” echoed Alden.

“Yes. In the Bay State Trust Company. I want to live here.”

“Here?” echoed Jane.

“Well, not in this house,” said Steve calmly. “Though I like that view of the river. But in Boston. I’ve always loved Boston. I think it’s the place for Carvers to live.”

“You’re right there, my boy,” put in Alden approvingly.

“I’ve just been taking,” said Steve⁠—and his eye brightened⁠—“a walk around Beacon Hill. You don’t know what it does to me, Mumsy. I simply love it. It’s the call of the blood or something. I’m going to buy a little old redbrick house on Chestnut or Mount Vernon Street⁠—a little old redbrick house with a white front door and a bright brass knocker and lavender-tinted panes of old glass in its front window. I’m going to buy the best old stuff I can get to furnish it with. It’s going to be⁠—well⁠—if not an American Wing, at least an American Lean-to! The Metropolitan is going to envy me some of my pieces. I’m going to have a good cook and a better cellar and give delightful little parties. I’m going to be Boston’s Most Desirable Bachelor. But I’m not going to end up like Uncle Alden!” Steve paused to smile engagingly at his astounded relatives. “On my twenty-ninth birthday, I’m going to marry the season’s most eligible débutante⁠—and her name will be Cabot or Lodge or Lowell⁠—and replenish the dwindling Carver stock, I’m going to have ten children in the good old New England tradition, and marry them all off to the best Back Bay connections. There! That’s a brief résumé of my earthly plans and ambitions. But in the meantime, I need a job. I’d rather be in Grandfather’s bank than in any other. So I thought if Uncle Alden had a high stool vacant, I’d just put in a bid for it. If not⁠—”

But Alden’s face was shining with approbation.

“Of course I have, Steve!” he said warmly. “And I must say this would have delighted your grandfather! Wouldn’t it have delighted him, Stephen?”

Jane looked quickly at Stephen’s face. Her own sense of defeat was clearly written there.

“I suppose it would have,” he said slowly. “But, just the same, Steve’s really a Westerner. Partly by blood and wholly by upbringing⁠—”

Jane loved him for his words. Alden looked pained.

“Do you call an education at Milton and Harvard a Western upbringing?” he inquired with acerbity.

Stephen laughed shortly.

“I suppose we should have sent him to the high school in Lakewood,” he said a trifle bitterly.

“And to some freshwater college?” inquired Alden. “Don’t be absurd, Stephen!”

“You don’t need me, Dad, in the Midland Loan and Trust Company,” said Steve persuasively. “You’ve got Jack.”

“I want you, nevertheless,” said Stephen soberly.

“But I want this, Dad,” said Steve. He walked to the window as he spoke and gazed out over the back yards of Beacon Street and the sparkling blue river toward the grey domes and cornices of the Tech buildings across the basin. “I⁠—want⁠—this. I want to live forever in sight of that little gold dome that tops Beacon Hill. I know what I want, Dad⁠—”

“In that case,” said Stephen dryly, “you’ll probably get it. Carvers usually do. Male Carvers, that is⁠—”

Jane knew he was thinking of wasted Silly.

“I’m sorry for your wife, Steve,” she commented tartly.

“Oh⁠—she’ll like it,” said Steve easily. “I’ll pick one that will.”

It was all arranged with Alden in the next half-hour.

“Darling,” said Jane, as she left the room with Stephen, “perhaps he’ll tire of it. Perhaps he’ll come home.” She tried to make her weary voice ring clear with conviction. But she knew he wouldn’t. Stephen knew it, too. He had nothing to add to the arguments he had been vainly propounding for the last half-hour.

“Jane⁠—you’re a trump!” was all he said.

III

It was on the Twentieth Century, three days later, that Jenny issued her ultimatum. The female Carvers in the rising generation yielded nothing in determination to the male. Jane and Stephen were sitting in their compartment, looking out at the bleak midwinter landscape of the Berkshire Hills, when she thrust her blonde head around their door.

“They’ve had a lot of snow,” Stephen was just saying absently. He had been saying things like that, very absently and at long intervals, ever since the train had pulled out of the Back Bay Station. Jane was terribly sorry for him.

“What are you two doing?” cried Jenny very gaily. “Holding hands, as I live and breathe! You look like a coloured lithograph of The Golden Wedding! Something that comes out with the Sunday Supplement!” She perched lightly on the arm of the Pullman seat and dropped a casual kiss on Jane’s hair. “Now, listen, darlings,” she continued brightly. “I’ve got something to tell you. I don’t know if you’ll like it, but it has to be told.”

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 Stephen’s hand. A silence that was eventually broken by her husband.

“The Hudson’s frozen over,” said Stephen absently.

His voice recalled Jane from the little hell of worry in which she had been blindly revolving. Stephen did not yet know about Cicily. She would have to tell him. But not now. Stephen had had enough.

“Why, so it is!” said Jane.

IV

Jane sat in the window of the Lakewood living-room, cross-stitching little brown and scarlet robins on a bib that she was making for Robin Redbreast’s fourth Christmas. The Skokie Valley was a plain of spotless white. The sun was high and the sky was blue and the bare boughs of the oak trees were outlined with a crust of silvery snow that was melting, a little, in the heat of the December noon. Jenny was stretched on the sofa, intent on the pages of The American Kennels Gazette. She was investigating the state of the market on Russian wolf hounds.

It was Saturday and Stephen would soon be home for luncheon. Young Steve was staying late at the bank. He was winding up his affairs there very conscientiously, preparatory to his departure for Boston on the New Year.

“Mumsy,” said Jenny presently.

“Yes,” said Jane.

“Has it occurred to you that Dad’s looking rather off his feed? Since we came home from Boston, I mean?”

“Yes,” said Jane soberly, “it has.”

“Why don’t you go off together somewhere⁠—take a trip to Egypt or a Mediterranean cruise?”

“Dad couldn’t leave the bank,” said Jane shortly. “And I wouldn’t want to leave you children.”

“It seems to me,” said Jenny cheerfully, “that we children are leaving you.”

“Cicily isn’t,” said Jane with equal cheerfulness. “And we have the grandchildren.”

“Mumsy,” said Jenny earnestly, “do you know I think parents make a mistake to count so much on their children? I think you and Dad ought to have more fun on your own. When you were young, Mumsy, weren’t you ever bored with Lakewood? Didn’t you want to see the world?”

“Yes, I was,” said Jane honestly. “I wanted to see the world.”

“Well, then, why don’t you?” said Jenny eagerly. “Why don’t you, now you can?”

“But I can’t,” said Jane.

“Why not?” said Jenny.

“Because I’m needed here,” said Jane a trifle tartly.

“That’s just nonsense,” said Jenny very reasonably. “What do you do here that couldn’t be left undone?”

On that outrageous question Jane heard Stephen’s latchkey. He opened the front door and walked across the hall to hang up his hat and coat. His step, Jane thought, was just a little heavy. He smiled a trifle absently at his wife and daughter, from the living-room door.

“Am I late?” he asked.

“No. Just in time,” said Jane. She rose to touch the bell as she spoke.

Stephen did look off his feed. He looked as if something were worrying him. Something more than Jenny and Steve. He had looked just that way for the last ten days⁠—ever since their return from his father’s funeral. He had had almost nothing to say on the further chimerical development of Jenny’s and Steve’s plans for emancipation. Jane, sensing his preoccupation, had said nothing about Cicily. And Cicily, amazingly, had said nothing about herself. She had accepted the news of her legacy in Boston with incredulous joy. But she had made no comment on her domestic situation. She had returned to the little French farmhouse in silence. She had brought her children three times to see Jane. In their presence, of course, discussion of her predicament⁠—if wilful wrongdoing could be called a predicament⁠—was impossible. Jane had almost begun to hope, against hope, that Cicily had recognized the error of her ways. That financial freedom had brought emotional enlightenment. That as soon as the door was opened, Cicily had realized that she did not want to leave home. Perhaps she would never have to tell Stephen. Or tell him, at least, only of an evil that had been avoided, a peril that had been escaped, a sin that had been atoned.

“Luncheon is served, madam,” said the waitress.

Jenny chatted pleasantly of the charms of Russian wolf hounds while they sat at table. Stephen toyed with his chop, picked at his salad, and ignored his soufflé.

“I want to talk to your mother,” he said abruptly, when they had reentered the living-room.

“About me?” smiled Jenny. “What have I done?”

But Stephen did not smile.

“Run along, dear,” said Jane.

Jenny picked up The American Kennels Gazette and left the room. Jane turned inquiringly toward Stephen. He had seated himself in his armchair near the fire. He sat for some time in silence, gazing abstractedly at the blazing logs.

“Well, dear?” ventured Jane presently.

“I don’t know how to begin,” said Stephen soberly. He had not raised his eyes from the fire.

“Stephen!” cried Jane in alarm. She sat down on the arm of his chair. “Stephen, what is it?”

“It’s going to be a shock to you,” said Stephen. “It was a great shock to me. I’ve known it for ten days and I haven’t known how to tell you. Cicily is going to divorce Jack.”

“Stephen!” cried Jane, aghast. Then, “Who told you?”

“Cicily,” said Stephen. “She came down to my office in the bank the day after we came home from Boston. I hope I handled her right, Jane⁠—” Stephen’s face was terribly troubled.

“What did you do?” asked Jane.

“I lost my temper,” said Stephen simply. “I hit the ceiling. She said she wanted to marry Albert Lancaster and I said we would never allow it⁠—that she was disgraceful⁠—that⁠—”

“And what did she do?” asked Jane.

“She went away,” said Stephen. “She kissed me and went away. This morning she came back again.”

“Yes?” said Jane breathlessly.

“She came back,” said Stephen slowly, “to say that everything was settled. Belle and Jack have consented. Albert talked to Robin this morning. Belle’s going to Reno in January⁠—”

“Oh, Stephen!” cried Jane.

“And Cicily’s sailing for Paris next week.”

“Next week!” cried Jane.

“Next week,” said Stephen. “She says she wants to spend Christmas Day on the boat⁠—because of the children, you know. She does⁠—she does think of the children, Jane⁠—”

Stephen’s voice was faltering.

“Stephen,” said Jane very solemnly, “this just can’t be. We’ve got to stop her.”

“You try,” said Stephen grimly.

Just then Jane heard the doorbell.

“I don’t want to see anyone, Irma!” she called to the waitress.

But when the front door opened, Jane heard Isabel’s voice. Her sister’s quick step crossed the hall.

“Jane!” she called sharply. “Jane! Stephen!”

Jane exchanged one long look with Stephen.

“This is going to be perfectly terrible,” she said. Then, “Here we are, Isabel!”

Isabel appeared in the living-room door. Her eyes were red and her worn, round face was swollen. She must have been crying all the way out from town in her car. She still held a damp little handkerchief, twisted into a tight, round ball in her hand.

“What did I tell you, Jane?” was the first thing she said.

“Isabel, darling,” said Jane, “come in and sit down and help us. We’re trying to decide what we must do.”

“What you must do!” cried Isabel. “You must stop Cicily!”

“How?” said Jane.

“I don’t care,” said Isabel, “as long as you stop her!” She sank down on a sofa near the fire. She looked accusingly up at Jane. “You know I saw what was coming, Jane. I warned you. But of course I never really knew⁠—I never even imagined anything like this could happen until Belle came in this morning and told me all about it. It was dreadful, Jane, for Mamma was there. Belle never thought of her⁠—of how, I mean, we’d have to break it to her. Belle’s like me⁠—she speaks right out. And Mamma was awful, Jane. It was a terrible shock to her and she went all to pieces.”

“What do you mean?” asked Jane anxiously. “What did she do?”

“Talked,” said Isabel briefly. “She rather sought refuge in the old-time religion. She thinks Cicily’s damned⁠—utterly damned. And she told Belle she was worse than Cicily for condoning sin, in cold blood. For letting Albert off, I mean. For going to Reno. And that knocked Belle up. She’d been very calm and controlled before. And she began to cry⁠—she just cried her heart out, Jane! I had to send for Minnie to take Mamma away, so I could talk to Belle. And then Robin came home. He was utterly shattered. He’d just had the most awful, heartless interview with Albert in his office. About settlements, I mean, and horrible, final things like that. I’d just got Belle quiet, but that set her off again. She’s simply distracted, Jane⁠—and we tried to get hold of Jack, but he wasn’t at the bank and he wasn’t out here in Lakewood. And I didn’t want any lunch, so I just left Belle with Robin and came straight to talk to you and Stephen. You must stop Cicily!” Isabel paused for breath.

“Poor⁠—little⁠—Belle,” said Stephen, slowly. “Poor young kid!”

“Isabel⁠—” said Jane impulsively, then paused. After a moment she went on, however. “I think that’s very fine of Belle⁠—to let Albert go, I mean. Do you know⁠—does she⁠—does she really love him?”

“Does she love him?” cried Isabel indignantly. “Of course she loves him! She married him, didn’t she?”

“Yes,” said Jane slowly. “She married him. But⁠—”

“And she’s got three lovely children. Of course she loves him. And Jack loves Cicily. He really does, Jane, though I don’t see how he can. He loves her and he adores his babies and⁠—”

“I know,” said Jane. “I know. I’d always count on Jack.”

“I just can’t realize it,” said Isabel. “A double scandal like this in our family! In our family, Jane. I feel as if it weren’t possible⁠—as if I must be dreaming. When will you see Cicily?”

“Now,” said Jane. She rose decisively to her feet as she spoke. “Will you come, Stephen?”

Stephen shook his head very soberly.

“You’d get on better without me, Jane. I said my say to Cicily this morning. I don’t know that she’ll ever want to see me again. Not this afternoon, at any rate.”

Bending over the back of his armchair, Jane kissed his grey hair very tenderly.

“Then you stay here with Isabel,” she said.

V

“But Cicily,” said Jane, half an hour later, “have you never heard of conduct?” She was sitting hand in hand with her daughter on the sofa in the little French drawing-room.

“I have,” said Cicily firmly, “and I think I’m conducting myself very well!” The child’s young voice rang true with conviction.

“How can you think that, Cicily?” said Jane sadly. “I’m not asking you to consider your father or me, or your grandmother, or your Aunt Isabel, or your Uncle Robin. But leaving us all out of it, you’re wrecking ten lives.”

“Meaning Albert’s and Belle’s and Jack’s and mine and the lives of all six children?” smiled Cicily. “Mumsy, don’t be hysterical!”

“But you are, Cicily,” said Jane. “You’re wrecking them all for your own individual pleasure. You’re utterly selfish. You don’t care what havoc you make⁠—”

“I’m not making havoc!” cried Cicily indignantly. “I’m not making havoc, any more than a surgeon is who performs a necessary operation. No one likes operations. They’re very unpleasant. But they save lives. People cry and carry on, but later they’re glad they had them. It takes time, of course, to get over a major incision. But you wait, Mumsy. In two years’ time we’ll all be a great deal happier. A great deal happier than we’ve been for years.”

“You will, perhaps,” said Jane. “And possibly Albert. But what about Jack and Belle?”

“Don’t talk about Belle!” cried Cicily contemptuously.

“I have to talk about her,” said Jane very seriously. “You have to think of her. You’re doing her a great wrong.”

“Mumsy,” cried Cicily, “you are not civilized. You have the morals of the Stone Age! You really have! I’m not wronging Belle! She doesn’t love Albert. She just wants to hang on to him because she doesn’t love anyone else! If she did, she’d be all smiles. No one likes to be left, Mumsy, but if Belle were doing the leaving⁠—”

“But she’s not,” said Jane firmly. “Facts are facts. Belle says she loves her husband.”

“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 Lakewood, and I thought if I began to fool around with those old problems again⁠—go back to school, perhaps⁠—”

“Attaboy!” It was Jenny’s cheerful voice. She was standing in the doorway, smiling in at them all very tranquilly.

“Jenny, come in,” said Stephen soberly. “We have something to tell you.”

“I’ve known about it for weeks, Dad,” said Jenny affably. She advanced to the hearthrug and thrust her arm through Jack’s. “Cicily’s a fool, but she must run through her folly. It’s a great shame that the world was organized with two sexes. It makes for a lot of trouble. I’m all on Jack’s side. I have been from the start. I’m thinking of marrying him myself, if he’ll turn that old bean of his to the raising of Russian wolfhounds!”

Jack met his sister-in-law’s levity with rather an uncertain smile. She grinned cheerfully at him.

“Want a drink, Jacky?”

“Jenny!” cried Isabel, in shocked accents.

“Of course he does!” persisted Jenny coolly. “I’ll ring for a cocktail.” As she walked toward the bell, her clear young eyes wandered brightly over the ravaged faces of the older generation. “Do you know, you’re all taking this a great deal too seriously? It’s not the end of the world. It’s not even the end of Cicily and Jack and Albert and Belle. They’re all going to live to make you a great deal more trouble. Save your strength, boys and girls, for future crises!” She turned to meet the maid. “A whiskey sour, Irma, and some anchovy sandwiches. You’ll all feel better when you’ve had a drink.”

It was, Jane was reflecting, an incredible generation. They took nothing seriously. Unless, perhaps, the preservation of the light touch. But Jack looked distinctly cheered.

And very grateful to Jenny. Yet Jack loved Cicily. When the whiskey arrived, Jane was very much surprised to find herself drinking it. She drank two cocktails. Isabel did, too, and ate four anchovy sandwiches as well.

“I had no lunch,” she remarked in melancholy explanation. Then, “I’ll run you in town, Jack,” she said, putting down her glass.

“No, I’m going over to call on the kids,” said Jack very surprisingly. “They leave in three days.” He turned toward the door.

“I’ll see you at the Winters’ musicale tonight,” said Jenny.

“I’m not⁠—quite sure,” said Jack slowly.

“Nonsense!” said Jenny. “Of course I will. The Casino, at nine. You must make Belle go, Aunt Isabel. You must make her wear her prettiest frock!”

“Belle wouldn’t dream of going,” said Isabel with dignity.

“I bet she does,” said Jenny. “And rightly so!”

“Jenny,” said Jane gently, “don’t.”

“Cicily and Albert won’t be there, Mumsy. He’ll be out here with her, as she’s going in three days. And if they were, what of it? What of it? Why carry on so about it? It’s all in the day’s work. Can’t you take divorce a little more calmly?”

No, she couldn’t, thought Jane, when Jack and Isabel had gone and Jenny had returned to her room and The American Kennels Gazette and she was left alone with Stephen before the living-room fire. She really couldn’t and she did not want to. What was the world coming to? What had gone out of life? What was missing in the moral fibre of the rising generation? Did decency mean nothing to them? Did loyalty? Did love? Did love mean too much, perhaps? One kind of love. It was a sex-ridden age. For the last twenty years the writers and doctors, the scientists and philosophers, had been preaching sex⁠—illuminating its urges, justifying its demands, prophesying its victory. But the province of writers and doctors, of scientists and philosophers, was preaching, not practice. Could it be possible that ordinary men and women, like Jack and Cicily, like Albert and Belle, on whom the work of the world and the future of children depended, had been naive enough to take this nonsense about sex-fulfilment seriously? Did they really believe it to be predominantly important? Sex-fulfilment, Jane thought hotly, was predominantly important only in the monkey house. Elsewhere character counted.

But these children had character. They had managed this appalling affair with extraordinary ability and restraint. They had a code, Jane dimly perceived, a code that was based⁠—on what? Bravado and barbarism or courage and common sense? It was very perplexing. It was very complicated. It was wrecking the older generation. But it was not a clear-cut issue, Jane admitted with a sigh, between the apes and the angels.