On the occasion of Lily’s first dinner at home, the mulatto woman
brought out the heaviest of the silver candelabra and despatched Hennery
into the Town for a dozen tall candles and a great bunch of pink roses
which filled the silver épergne when the mother and the two daughters
came down to dinner; Julia Shane, as usual, wore black with a lace shawl
thrown over her gray hair, a custom which she had come to adopt in the
evenings and one which gave the Town one more point of evidence in the
growing chain of her eccentricities. Irene, still clad in the gray dress
with the high collar and looking somehow like a governess or a nurse
employed in the house, took her place at the side of the table. As for
Lily, her appearance so fascinated the mulatto woman and the black girl
who aided her that the dinner was badly served and brought a sharp
remonstrance from Mrs. Shane. No longer had Lily any claims to girlhood.
Indisputably she was become a woman. A fine figure of a woman, she might
have been called, had she been less languid and indolent. Her slimness
had given way to a delicate voluptuousness, a certain opulence like the
ripeness of a beautiful fruit. Where there had been slimness before
there now were curves. She moved slowly and with the same curious
dignity of her mother, and she wore no rouge, for her lips were full and
red and her cheeks flushed with delicate color. Her beauty was the
beauty of a peasant girl from which all coarseness had been eliminated,
leaving only a radiant glow of health. She was, after all, the
granddaughter of a Scotch farmer; there was nothing thin-blooded about
her, nothing of the anemia of Irene. To-night she wore a tea-gown from
Venice, the color of water in a limestone pool, liquid, cool, pale
green. Her reddish hair, in defiance of the prevailing fashions, she
wore bound tightly about her head and fastened by a pin set with
brilliants. About her neck on a thin silver cord hung suspended a single
pear-shaped emerald which rested between her breasts, so that sometimes
it hung outside the gown and sometimes lay concealed against the
delicate white skin.
Irene throughout the dinner spoke infrequently and kept her eyes cast
down as though the beauty of her sister in some way fascinated and
repelled her. When it was finished, she stood up and addressed her
mother.
“I must go now. It is my night to teach at Welcome House.”
Lily regarded her with a puzzled expression until her mother, turning to
explain, said, “She teaches English to a class of foreigners in Halsted
street.” And then to Irene, “You might have given it up on the first
night Lily was home!”
A look of stubbornness came into the pale face of the younger sister. “I
can’t. They are depending on me. I shall see Lily every day for weeks.
This is a duty. To stay would be to yield to pleasure.”
“But you’re not going alone into Halsted street?” protested Lily. “At
night! You must be crazy!”
“I’m perfectly safe.... They know me and what I do,” the sister answered
proudly. “Besides there is one of the men who always sees me home.”
She came round to Lily’s chair and gave her a kiss, the merest brushing
of cool lips against the older sister’s warm cheek. “Good-night,” she
said, “in case you have gone to bed before I return.”
When Irene had gone, an instant change took place in the demeanor of the
two women. It was as though some invisible barrier, separating the souls
of mother and daughter, had been let down suddenly. Lily leaned back and
stretched her long limbs. The mulatto woman brought cigarettes and the
mother and daughter settled themselves to talking. They were at last
alone and free to say what they would.
“How long has Irene been behaving in this fashion?” asked Lily.
“It is more than three years now. I don’t interfere because it gives
her so much pleasure. It saved her, you know, from entering the church.
Anything is better than that.”
Then all at once as though they had suddenly entered another world, they
began to talk French, shutting out the mulatto woman from their
conversation.
“Mais elle est déja religieuse,” said Lily, “tout simplement. You might
as well let her enter the church. She already behaves like a nun ... in
that ridiculous gray dress. She looks ghastly. You should forbid it. A
woman has no right to make herself look hideous. There’s something
sinful in it.”
The mother smiled wearily. “Forbid it? You don’t know Irene. I’m
thankful to keep her out of the church. She is becoming fanatic.” There
was a pause and Mrs. Shane added, “She never goes out now ... not since
a year and more.”
“She is like a spinster of forty.... It is shameful for a girl of
twenty-five to let herself go in that fashion. No man would look at
her.”
“Irene will never marry.... It is no use speaking to her. I have seen
the type before, Lily ... the religieuse. It takes the place of love. It
is just as ecstatic.”
The mulatto woman, who had been clearing away the dishes, came and stood
by her mistress’ chair to await, after her custom, the orders for the
following day. “There will only be three of us ... as usual. That is
all, Sarah!”
The woman turned to go but Lily called after her. “Mama,” she said,
“can’t we open the rest of the house while I’m here? It’s horrible, shut
up in this fashion. I hate sitting in the library when there is all the
drawing-room.”
Mrs. Shane did not argue. “Get some one to help you open the
drawing-room to-morrow, Sarah. We will use it while Miss Lily is here.”
The mulatto woman went out and Lily lighted another cigarette. “You will
want it open for the Christmas party,” she said. “You can’t entertain
all the family in the library.”
“I had thought of giving up the Christmas party this year,” replied the
Mother.
“No ... not this year,” cried Lily. “It is such fun, and I haven’t seen
Cousin Hattie and Uncle Jacob and Ellen for years.”
Again the mother yielded. “You want gaiety, I see.”
“Well, I’m not pious like Irene, and this house is gloomy enough.” At
the sight of her mother rising from her chair, she said ... “Let’s not
go to the library. Let’s sit here. I hate it in there.”
So there they remained while the tall candles burned lower and lower.
Suddenly after a brief pause in the talk, the mother turned to Lily and
said, “Et toi.”
Lily shrugged her shoulders. “Moi? Moi? Je suis contente.”
“Et Madame Gigon, et le petit Jean.”
“They are well ... both of them. I have brought a picture which I’ve
been waiting to show you.”
“He is married, you know.”
“When?”
“Only three weeks ago. He came here after your letter to offer to do
anything he could. He wants the boy to go to school in America.”
Here Lily smiled triumphantly. “But Jean is mine. I shall accept nothing
from him. He is afraid to recognize Jean because it would ruin him. I
shall send the boy where I like.” She leaned forward, glowing with a
sudden enthusiasm. “You don’t know how handsome he is and how clever.”
She pushed back her chair. “Wait, I’ll get his picture.”
The mother interrupted her. “Bring me the enameled box from my dressing
table. There is something in it that will interest you.”