Sylvia Penrose came home in time for commencement. It was her first
visit since the gold-lined catastrophe whereby she was shorn of the
coveted “Mrs. Professor,” and she brought with her more pretty clothes
than anyone in Springdale had dreamed of--outside a department store.
Her father watched her uneasily, the first evening. He saw a marked
change in her, and the quality of it disturbed him. Could a child
of his acquire such a degree of cynical world-wisdom in a brief ten
months? Had Sylvia changed, or was he seeing her for the first time, as
she was?
David was not given to introspection. The chambers of his heart were
filled with the ghosts of dreams and longings that had perished ...
yet would not lie quiet in the graves to which his acquiescent mind
had consigned them. One could always take refuge from the hurt of life
in the tangible things that life had imposed. He took refuge, now, in
his wife’s vivid charm, her spontaneous return to health and buoyancy.
Barring a certain smugness, that had come to be an essential fibre of
her mental woof, she was amazingly attractive.
“You might easily pass for Mrs. Penrose’s sister,” Judith exclaimed,
astonished at the apparition of Lavinia in a cameo pink negligée with
wide frills of cream lace. And, Lavinia, smarting under the lash of her
daughter’s comments regarding the morning jacket--and the foolish old
women who tried to prolong youth by such ill-considered devices--turned
to preen herself before the mirror.
She had fully intended to prime Sylvia, with regard to Larimore and
the dangerous widow; but that burst of spontaneous praise disarmed
her. She did not, however, neglect to make plain her intentions in
another quarter. Hal Marksley was to be treated with proper respect.
It would not be a bad idea to have the engagement--the wedding,
even--consummated before her return from Bromfield. Any one with a
grain of sense must know that a fellow as popular and rich as Hal--with
half the girls in town after him--would not stand such snubbing as
he had received from the men of the household. He was of age ... and
Eileen could easily pass herself off for eighteen or twenty if she did
up her hair and went to Greenville where she was not known. Papa and
Larimore were absolutely insane not to see that a girl with Eileen’s
impetuous nature.... Mrs. Trench did not finish the sentence. She and
Sylvia understood each other.