The Turmoil, Booth Tarkington [best english novels for beginners .txt] 📗

certain impression she believed that she made it. She believed that she was believed.

“My mother asked me to say that she was sorry she couldn’t come down,” Mary said, when they were seated.

Sibyl ran the scale of a cooing simulance of laughter, which she had been brought up to consider the polite thing to do after a remark addressed to her by any person with whom she was not on familiar terms. It was intended partly as a courtesy and partly as the foundation for an impression of sweetness.

“Just thought I’d fly in a minute,” she said, continuing the cooing to relieve the last doubt of her gentiality. “I thought I’d just behave like real country neighbors. We are almost out in the country, so far from downtown, aren’t we? And it seemed such a lovely day! I wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed meeting those nice people at tea that afternoon. You see, coming here a bride and never having lived here before, I’ve had to depend on my husband’s friends almost entirely, and I really’ve known scarcely anybody. Mr. Sheridan has been so engrossed in business ever since he was a mere boy, why, of course⁠—”

She paused, with the air of having completed an explanation.

“Of course,” said Mary, sympathetically accepting it.

“Yes. I’ve been seeing quite a lot of the Kittersbys since that afternoon,” Sibyl went on. “They’re really delightful people. Indeed they are! Yes⁠—”

She stopped with unconscious abruptness, her mind plainly wandering to another matter; and Mary perceived that she had come upon a definite errand. Moreover, a tensing of Sibyl’s eyelids, in that moment of abstraction as she looked aside from her hostess, indicated that the errand was a serious one for the caller and easily to be connected with the slight but perceptible agitation underlying her assumption of cheerful ease. There was a restlessness of breathing, a restlessness of hands.

“Mrs. Kittersby and her daughter were chatting about some to the people here in town the other day,” said Sibyl, repeating the cooing and protracting it. “They said something that took me by surprise! We were talking about our mutual friend, Mr. Robert Lamhorn⁠—”

Mary interrupted her promptly. “Do you mean ‘mutual’ to include my mother and me?” she asked.

“Why, yes; the Kittersbys and you and all of us Sheridans, I mean.”

“No,” said Mary. “We shouldn’t consider Mr. Robert Lamhorn a friend of ours.”

To her surprise, Sibyl nodded eagerly, as if greatly pleased. “That’s just the way Mrs. Kittersby talked!” she cried, with a vehemence that made Mary stare. “Yes, and I hear that’s the way all you old families here speak of him!”

Mary looked aside, but otherwise she was able to maintain her composure. “I had the impression he was a friend of yours,” she said; adding, hastily, “and your husband’s.”

“Oh yes,” said the caller, absently. “He is, certainly. A man’s reputation for a little gaiety oughtn’t to make a great difference to married people, of course. It’s where young girls are in question. Then it may be very, very dangerous. There are a great many things safe and proper for married people that might be awf’ly imprudent for a young girl. Don’t you agree, Miss Vertrees?”

“I don’t know,” returned the frank Mary. “Do you mean that you intend to remain a friend of Mr. Lamhorn’s, but disapprove of Miss Sheridan’s doing so?”

“That’s it exactly!” was the naive and ardent response of Sibyl. “What I feel about it is that a man with his reputation isn’t at all suitable for Edith, and the family ought to be made to understand it. I tell you,” she cried, with a sudden access of vehemence, “her father ought to put his foot down!”

Her eyes flashed with a green spark; something seemed to leap out and then retreat, but not before Mary had caught a glimpse of it, as one might catch a glimpse of a thing darting forth and then scuttling back into hiding under a bush.

“Of course,” said Sibyl, much more composedly, “I hardly need say that it’s entirely on Edith’s account that I’m worried about this. I’m as fond of Edith as if she was really my sister, and I can’t help fretting about it. It would break my heart to have Edith’s life spoiled.”

This tune was off the key, to Mary’s ear. Sibyl tried to sing with pathos, but she flatted.

And when a lady receives a call from another who suffers under the stress of some feeling which she wishes to conceal, there is not uncommonly developed a phenomenon of duality comparable to the effect obtained by placing two mirrors opposite each other, one clear and the other flawed. In this case, particularly, Sibyl had an imperfect consciousness of Mary. The Mary Vertrees that she saw was merely something to be cozened to her own frantic purpose⁠—a Mary Vertrees who was incapable of penetrating that purpose. Sibyl sat there believing that she was projecting the image of herself that she desired to project, never dreaming that with every word, every look, and every gesture she was more and more fully disclosing the pitiable truth to the clear eyes of Mary. And the Sibyl that Mary saw was an overdressed woman, in manner half rustic, and in mind as shallow as a pan, but possessed by emotions that appeared to be strong⁠—perhaps even violent. What those emotions were Mary had not guessed, but she began to suspect.

“And Edith’s life would be spoiled,” Sibyl continued. “It would be a dreadful thing for the whole family. She’s the very apple of Father Sheridan’s eye, and he’s as proud of her as he is of Jim and Roscoe. It would be a horrible thing for him to have her marry a man like Robert Lamhorn; but he doesn’t know anything about him, and if somebody doesn’t tell him, what I’m most afraid of is that Edith might get his consent and hurry on the wedding before he finds out, and then it would be too late. You see, Miss Vertrees, it’s very difficult for me