Alice Duer Miller

“ Royce busied herself with flame and kettle and tea-caddie before she repeated her question, and her voice had in it a faint sediment of these preoccupations:
“I hope you do not think it necessary to send Celia away, Dr. Despard?”
He drew a chair forward and sat down. “No, Mrs. Royce,” he said; “I think it necessary to send you away.”
“Me?”
He bowed.
“But my health is excellent. Oh, I see,” she smiled. “My husband has been talking to you about my responsibilities. Yes, they are great, but one is given strength to do what is required of one. I shall not have to desert my post. I am strong.” ”

“ The darkest forebodings filled her mind as to what she would find within. She rang and, after an interval too long by several minutes, Churchley opened the door. For an instant his appearance drove all other thoughts away.
“Why, Churchley,” she cried, “you have been putting on weight!”
Churchley acknowledged the imputation with a smile that approached dangerously near a dimple.
“Yes, madame,” he said; “I've taken a great turn for the better,” and he asked sympathetically after her own health. ”

“ One hope lingered unacknowledged in her breast. She turned to her husband.
“And have they made you comfortable since I went?” she asked.
“Oh, perfectly,” be replied. “Everything has gone without a hitch, thanks to your arrangements.”
“Yes,” Celia chimed in, “the servants have been too wonderful; they've done everything just as if you were at home, only better.”
Mrs. Royce looked round the room, where to her eye everything was wrong—the corners dusty, the lamps ill-cared for, the sofa pillows rumpled, and the tea-tray, which ought to have been removed, still standing disordered in a corner. ”

“ I should begin to see things, things, things, and to believe that all life was merely a question of arrangements. Even your religion, Mrs. Royce, in which most people find some continuity, is a question of things—of Sunday-schools and altar decoration. ”

“ Royce,” said he, “but you are the cause of weakness in others. We need not multiply examples: your daughter, the governess, Churchley——”
She broke in—“Of course I admit their weakness. But don't you see how I protect and support them? How could you imagine that I was the cause?”
“Isn't it suggestive that practically every one with whom you come in contact——”
“My husband,” she retorted, quoting an instance against him.
“Your husband has great natural calm, and spends eight hours a day out of the house. You have made this home, this really wonderful home, for those you love. ”

“ Royce?”
She assented. The daughter was the problem—the daughter of seventeen.
“She and I have been such friends; I have always been a friend to my children, I hope, as well as a parent. And Celia's little arrangements, her clothes and her small parties, have been as much my interests as hers—more perhaps. The bond between us has been peculiarly close until the last year or so. Lately a rebellious spirit has begun to develop. I have tried to make allowances, but naturally there are certain questions of manners and deportment—small but important—about which one cannot yield. ”

“ No one admires the achievement more than I do. But you have sacrificed too much of yourself in doing it; and I'm not speaking of your physical strength. In this library, in which you are so fond of sitting, how many books have you ever read? ”

“ I've won the prize for composition at school. I had the idea the very night you went away, and I've worked and worked over it, and they all say that it is much better than anything I ever did before. Aren't you glad?”
Yes, her mother was glad, but a strain of bitterness mingled with her rejoicing. Was it indeed her absence that had released all the vital energy? ”

“ Despard, I would so gladly go, but——”
“But?”
“But what would happen to my family without me?”
“They must try looking out for themselves,” he answered. He glanced at his watch, for he was to take a train that afternoon; and Mrs. Royce collected herself enough to touch the bell—it always hung within tempting reach of her hand—and gave Churchley orders to send for the motor and have the doctor's bags brought down. ”

“ The reactions have taken place too many times. I tell you to go away. We can call it a rest cure. You shall have beautiful surroundings, comfort, and above all that leisure that recent years have failed to give you. ”