With a sigh of relief, Mrs. Milo rose, adjusted her bonnet, and, to
make sure that her appearance justified her going out upon the street,
took up from the table that same hand-mirror which she had thrust
before Clare's face. "So she's gone," she observed. She turned her
head from side to side, delicately touching hair and bonnet, and the
lace at her throat. "Well, it's for the best, I've no doubt.--And now
we can go home."
Sue did not move. She had come back from her quick survey of the rear
yard to stand at the center of the front room--to stand very straight,
her head up, her eyes wide and fixed on space, her face strangely white
and stern.
"Susan?" Mrs. Milo took out and replaced a hairpin.
Sue Stirred. "Do you mean to _his_ home?" she asked slowly.
"I mean to the Rectory." The glass was laid back upon the table.
"After what you've said?"
"What I said was true."
"Ah!--You believe in speaking--the truth?"
"What a question, my daughter!"--fondly.
"Even when the truth is bitter--and _hard_!" She trembled, and drew in
her breath at the remembrance of that scathing arraignment.
"Shall we start?"
"But he has asked you not to return. And it's you who have sent her
away. And the little one is coming. You can't go to the Rectory."
"Oh, indeed?" queried Mrs. Milo, sarcastically. "And are you going?"
Sue waited a moment. Then, "My work is there."
Mrs. Milo started. "Now let me tell you something!" she cried,
throwing up her head. "You've disobeyed me once today----"
Sue smiled. "Disobeyed!" she repeated.
"--If you disobey me again--if you go back to the Rectory without
me----"
"I shall certainly go back."
"--You shan't have one penny of your father's life insurance! Not one!
I'll leave every cent of it to Wallace!"
Again Sue smiled. "Ah, you're independent of me, aren't you?"
"Quite--thank Providence!"
"No. Thank me. All these years you've had that insurance money out
earning interest. You haven't had to use any of it, or even any of its
earnings----"
"It has grown, I'm happy to say."
"Until you have plenty. Meanwhile, I've paid all of your expenses, and
educated my brother. Now--you can dispense with--your meal-ticket."
"_Meal_-ticket!" It was not the implied charge, but the slang, that
shocked.
"Yes, meal-ticket."
"So you throw it up! You've been supporting me! And helping Wallace!"
"I've been glad to. Every hour at my machine has been a happy one.
I've never begrudged what I've done."
"Well, anyhow, I shan't need to take any more support from you, nor
will my son."
Sue laughed grimly. "I don't know about that, mother. I'm afraid he's
going to miss his chance to marry a rich girl. And he's never been
very successful in making his own way."
Mrs. Milo would not be diverted from the main issue. "I repeat, Susan:
You disobey me, as you've threatened to, and I'm done with you.
Understand that. You'll go your way, and I will go mine."
Sue nodded. She understood. Her mother had announced her ultimatum to
Farvel, and he had accepted it. Mrs. Milo could not return to the
Rectory. But if Sue continued her work there, it meant that she would
enjoy a happy companionship with the clergyman--a companionship
unhindered by the presence of the elder woman. Such a state of affairs
might even end in marriage. And now Sue knew it was marriage that her
mother feared.
"Very well, mother."
"Ah, you like the separation plan!"
"We're as wide apart in our ideas as the poles."
"I have certainly been very much mistaken in you. Though I thought I
knew my own daughter! But--you belong with the Farvels, and it's a
pity she has run away. Perhaps she'll turn up later on." She spoke
quietly, but she was livid with anger. "I shall not be there to
interfere with your friendship. I am going to the hotel now. You can
direct my poor boy to me, if it isn't too much trouble."
"So you are going." Then smiling wistfully, "But who will fuss over
you when you're not sick? And coax you out of your nerves? And wait
on you like a lady's maid? And how will you be able to keep an eye on
me, mother? 'Who's telephoning you, Susan?' And 'Who's your letter
from, darling?'" Then with sarcasm, "Oh, hen-pecked Susan, is it
possible that you'll be able to go to Church without a chaperone? That
you can go down town without having to report home at half-hour
intervals?"
"Well! Well! Well!" marveled Mrs. Milo. She walked to the window
before retorting further. Then, with a return to the old methods of
playing for sympathy, "And here I've thought that you were contented
and happy with me! But--it seems that your mother isn't enough."
The attempt failed. "Was your mother enough?" demanded Sue.
Mrs. Milo came strolling back. Was it possible that tactics invariably
efficacious in the past would utterly fail her today? She made a
second attempt. "But--but do you realize," she faltered, with what
seemed deep feeling; "--your father died when Wallace was so little.
If you hadn't helped me, how would I have gotten on? If you'd
married----"
"Couldn't I have helped you?"
"But I had Wallace so late. And I'd have been alone. What would I
have done without my daughter?"
Sue was regarding her steadily. "What did your mother do without you?
And when you die, where shall _I_ be?--Alone! Ah, you've seen the
pathos of your own situation!--But how about mine?" For a second time
in a single day, this was a changed Sue, unaccountably clear-visioned,
and plain of speech.
"Dear me!" cried her mother, mockingly. "Our eyes are open all of a
sudden!"
"Yes,--my eyes are open."
"Why not open your mouth?"
"Thank you for the suggestion. I shall. For twenty-five years, my
eyes have been shut. I've always said, 'My mother is sweet, and pious,
and kind. She's one of that lovely type that's passing.' (Thank
Heaven, the type _is_ passing!) If now and then you were a little
severe with me--oh, I've noticed it because people have sometimes
interfered, as Hattie did this morning--I've never minded at all. I've
said, 'Whatever I am, I owe to my mother. And what she does is right.'
Anything you said or did to me never made any difference in the
wonderful feeling I had about you--the feeling of love and belief. All
this time I've never once thought of rebelling. But what you said and
did to another--to her, a girl who needs kindness and sympathy, who's
never done you an intentional wrong----! Oh, you're not really gentle
and charitable! You're cruel, mother!"
"I am just."
"The right kind of a woman today gives other women a chance for their
lives--their happiness. That is real piety. She makes allowances.
She's slow to condemn."
"You don't have to tell me that loose standards prevail."
Sue did not seem to hear. "All these years you've talked to me about
the home--the home with a capital H. Your home--which you'd 'kept
together'--the American home--wave the flag! And I've always believed
that you meant what you said. But today I understand your real
attitude. First, because you weren't willing to give that poor
cornered girl a chance at one. You intruded into her room and
deliberately drove her away."
"She ran away once from a good home with a good man." She paid Farvel
the compliment unconsciously--and unintentionally.
"Then consider my case,"--it was as if Sue were speaking to herself.
"Why haven't you given me a chance? For all these years, if a man
looked cross-eyed at me, was he ever asked to call on us?"
"Such nonsense!"
"If he did, somehow or other there was trouble. You would cry, and say
I didn't love you--or you pretended to find something wrong with him,
and he didn't come again. And once--once I remember that you claimed
that you were ill--though I think I guessed that you weren't--and away
we went for a change of air. Oh, peace at any price!"
Mrs. Milo grew scarlet. "Ha!" she scoffed. "So _I'm_ to blame for
your not being married! I've stood in your way!"
"Just think how you've acted today--the way you acted over this
dress--you can't bear to see me look well? Why?--Yes, you've stood in
my way from the very first."
"I deny it! _You'd_ better look in the mirror." She picked it up and
held it out to Sue. "You know, you're not a sweet young thing."
Sue took the glass, and held it before her, gazing sadly at her
reflection. "No," she answered. "But I can remember when I was
sweet--and young." She laid the mirror down.
Mrs. Milo felt the necessity of toning her remarks. She spoke now with
no rancor--but firmly. "Your lack of judgment was excusable then," she
declared. "But now--this interest in any and every child--in Farvel, a
man younger than yourself--it's silly, Sue. It's disgusting--in an old
maid."
"Any and every child," repeated Sue. "Oh, selfish! Selfish! Selfish!"
"No one can accuse me of that! I've been trying to save you from
making yourself ridiculous."
"To save me! Why, mother, you can't bear to see me give one hour to
those poor, deserted orphans. If I go over to see them, you go along.
And how many friends have I? Every thought I have must be for you!
you! you!"
"I have exacted the attention that a mother should have."
"And no more? But what about Wallace? Have you exacted the attention
from him that you should have? Does he owe you nothing? Why shouldn't
he spend what he earns in caring for his mother, instead of spending
every penny as he pleases? Is there one set of rules for daughters,
and another for sons? Why haven't you tied him up? Are you sure he's
capable, when he reaches Peru, of supporting a wife? Or will he simply
draw on Mr. Balcome--the way he's lived on me."
"You ought to be ashamed to speak of your brother in such a way!"
"How much more ashamed he ought to be to think that he's deserving of
such criticism."
"I can't think what has come over you!"
"It's what you said a moment ago: My eyes are opened. At eighteen
years of age, you planned your future for yourself. But you needed
me--so you claimed me, body and soul! And you've let me give you my
whole girlhood--my young womanhood. You've kept me single--and very
busy. And now,--I'm an old maid!"
The blue eyes glinted with satisfaction. "Well, you are an old maid."
"An old maid! In other words, my purity's a joke!"
"Now, we're getting vulgar."
"Vulgar? Have you forgotten what you said to Laura Farvel? You
taunted her because she's not 'good' as you call it. And you taunt me
because I am! But who is farther in the scheme of things--she or I? I
envy her because she's borne a child. At least she's a woman. Nature
means us to marry and have our little ones. The women who don't
obey--what happens to them? The years go"--she looked away now, beyond
the walls of Tottie's front-parlor, at a picture her imagining called
up--"the light fades from their eyes, the gloss from their hair; they
get 'peculiar.' And people laugh at them--and I don't wonder!" Then
passionately, "Look at me! Mature! Unmarried! Childless! Where in
Nature do I belong? Nowhere! I'm a freak!"
"No, my dear." Mrs. Milo smiled derisively. "You're a martyr."
"Yes! To my mother."
"Don't forget"--the well-bred voice grew shrill--"that I _am_ your
mother."
"You gave me birth. But--reproduction isn't motherhood."
"Ah!"--mockingly. "So I haven't loved you!"
"Oh, you've loved me," granted Sue. "You've loved me too much--in the
wrong way. It's a mistaken love that makes a mother stand between her
daughter and happiness."
"I deny----"
"Wait!--I got the proof today! I repeat--you forgot everything you've
ever stood for at the mere thought that happiness was threatening to
come my way."
Mrs. Milo's eyes widened with apprehension. Involuntarily she glanced
at the hand which Farvel had lifted to kiss.
"I ought to have known that my first duty was to myself," Sue went on
bitterly; "--to my children. But--I put away my dreams. And now! My
eyes are open too late! I've found out my mistake--too late! No
son--no daughter--'Momsey,' but never 'Mother.' And, oh, how my heart
has craved it all--a home of my own, and someone to care for me. And
my arms have ached for a baby!"
"Ha! Ha!"--Mrs. Milo found it all so ridiculous. "A baby! Well,--why
don't you have one?"
For a long moment, Sue looked at her mother without speaking. "Oh, I
know why you laugh," she said, finally. "I'm--I'm forty-five.
But--after today, _I'm_ going to do some laughing! I'm going to do
what I please, and go where I please! I'm free! I'm free at last!"
She cried it up to the chandelier. "From today, I'm free! This is the
Emancipation Proclamation! This is the Declaration of Independence!"
Mrs. Milo moved away, smiling. At the door she turned. "What can you
do?" she asked, teasingly; "--at _your_ age!"
Sue buttoned her coat over the bridesmaid's dress. "What can I do?"
she repeated. "Well, mother dear, just watch me!"