Mrs. Evringham drew her lithe figure up. “Well, Eloise, I hope there are limits to this. To call your own mother an—an ostrich!”
“Don't speak so loud,” returned the girl, rising and patting her mother's hand. “Grandfather has returned from his ride. I just heard him come in. It is too near dinner time for a scene. There is no need of our pretending to each other, is there? You have always put me off and put me off, but surely you mean to bring this to an end pretty soon?”
“You could bring it to an end at once if you would!” returned Mrs. Evringham, her voice lowered. “Dr. Ballard has nothing to wait for. I know all about his circumstances. There never was such a providence as father's having a friend like him ready to our hand—so suitable, so attractive, so rich!”
“Yes,” responded the girl low and equably, “it is just five weeks and two days that you have been throwing me at that man's head.”
“I have done nothing of the kind, Eloise Evringham.”
“Yes you have,” returned the girl without excitement, “and grandfather sneering at us all the time under his mustache. He knows that there are other girls and other mothers interested in Dr. Ballard more desirable than we are. Oh! how easy it is to be more desirable than we are!”
“There isn't one girl in five hundred so pretty as you,” returned Mrs. Evringham stoutly.
“I wish my prettiness could persuade you into my way of thinking.”
“What do you mean?” The glance of the older woman was keen and suspicious.
“We would take a cheap little apartment to-morrow,” said the girl wistfully.
Mrs. Evringham gave an ejaculation of impatience. “And do all our own work and live like pigs!” she returned petulantly.
Eloise shrugged her shoulders. “I may flatter myself, but I fancy I should keep it rather clean.”
“You wouldn't mind your hands then.” Mrs. Evringham regarded the hands worthy to be imitated by a sculptor's art, and the girl raised them and inspected the rose-tints of their tips. “I've read something about rubber gloves,” she returned vaguely.
“You'd better read something else then. How do you suppose you would get on without a carriage?” asked her mother with exasperation. “You have never had so much as a taste of privation in any form. Your suggestion is the acme of foolishness.”
“I think I could do something if you would let me,” rejoined the girl as calmly as before. “I think I could teach music pretty well, and keep house charmingly. If I had any false pride when we came out here, the past six weeks have purified me of it. Will you let me try, mother? I'm asking it very seriously.”
“Certainly not!” hotly. “There are armies of music teachers now, and you would not have a chance.”
“I think I could dress hair well,” remarked Eloise, glancing at the reflection in a mirror of her own graceful coiffure.
“I dare say!” responded Mrs. Evringham with sarcastic heat, “or I'm sure you could get a position as a waitress. The servant problem is growing worse every year.”
“I'd like to be your waitress, mother.” For the first time the girl lost her perfect poise, and the color fluctuated in her cheek. She clasped her hands. “It would be heaven compared with the feeling, the sickening, appalling suspicion, that we are becoming akin to the adventuresses we read of, the pretty, luxurious women who live by their wits.”
“Silence!” commanded Mrs. Evringham, her eyes flashing and her effective black-clothed figure drawn up.
Eloise sighed again. “I didn't expect to accomplish anything by this talk,” she said, relapsing into listlessness.
“What did you expect then? Merely to be disagreeable? I hope you may be as successful in worthier undertakings. Now listen. Some of the plans you have suggested at various times might be sensible if you were a plain girl. Your beauty is as tangible an asset as money would be; but beauty requires money. You must have it. Your poor father might have left it to you, but he didn't; so you will marry it—not unsuitably,” meeting an ominous look in her child's eyes, “not without love or under any circumstances to make a martyr of you, but according to common sense; and as a certain young man is evidently more and more certain of himself every time he comes”—she paused.
“You think there is no need for him to grow more certain of me?” asked Eloise.
“You might have saved us the disagreeables of this interview. And one thing more,” impressively, “you evidently are not taking into consideration, perhaps you never knew, that it was your grandfather's confidence in a certain course which induced your poor father to take that last fatal flyer. Your grandfather feels—I'm sure he feels—that much reparation is due us. The present conditions are easier for him than a separate suitable home would be, therefore”—Mrs. Evringham waved her hand. “It is strange,” she added, “that so young a girl should not repose more trust in her mother's judgment. And now that we are on the subject, I wish you would make more effort with your grandfather. Don't be so silent at table and leave all the talking to me. A man of his age likes to have merry young people about. Chat, create a cheerful atmosphere. He likes to look at you, of course, but you have been so quiet and lackadaisical of late, it is enough to hurt his feelings as host.”
“He has never shown any symptoms of anxiety,” remarked Eloise.
“Well, he is a very self-contained man.”
“He is indeed, poor grandfather; I don't know how you will manage, mother, when you have to play the game of 'pretend' all alone. He is growing tired of it, I can see. His courtesy is wearing very thin. I'm sorry to make it harder for you by taking away what must have been a large prop and support, but I heard papa say to himself more than once in those last sad days, 'If I had only taken my father's advice.'”
“Eloise,” very earnestly, “you misunderstood, you certainly misunderstood.”
The girl shook her head wearily. “No, alas! I neither misunderstand nor forget, when it would be most convenient to do so.”
Mrs. Evringham's fair brow contracted as she regarded her daughter with exasperation. “And you are only nineteen! One would think it was you instead of me to whom the next birthday would bring that detested forty.”
The girl looked at her mother, whose youthful face and figure betrayed the source of her own heritage of physical charm.
“I long ago gave up the hope of ever again being as young as you are,” she returned sadly. “Oh!” with a rare and piteous burst of feeling, “if dear papa could have stayed with us, and we could have had a right somewhere!”
Mrs. Evringham threw her arms about the young creature, welcoming the softened mood. “You know I took you right to my own people, Eloise,” she said gently. “We stayed as long as I thought was right; they couldn't afford to keep us.” A sound at the door caused her to turn. The erect form of her father-in-law had just entered the room.
“Ah, good evening, father,” she said in tones whose sadness was not altogether feigned, even though she secretly rejoiced that Eloise should for once show such opportune emotion. “Pardon this little girl. She was just feeling overwhelmed with a pang of homesickness for her father.”
“Indeed!” returned Mr. Evringham. “Will you walk out? Mrs. Forbes tells me that dinner is served.”
Eloise, hastily drawing her handkerchief across her eyes, passed the unbending figure, her cheeks stinging. His hard voice was in her ears.
That she was not his son's child hurt her now as often before in the past two months, but that he should have discovered her weeping at a moment when