Page:Early Autumn (1926).pdf/90

 of it. One takes it for granted. When one isn't rich any longer, one simply slips out of it. It has very little to do with happiness. . . ."

The strain was beginning to show on Aunt Cassie. "You'd find out if you weren't rich," she observed with asperity, "if your father and great-grandfather hadn't taken care of their money." She recovered herself and made a deprecating gesture. "But don't think I'm criticizing dear Olivia. She is the best, the most wonderful woman." She began to wrap herself once more in kindliness and charity and forgiveness. "Only she seems to me to be a little queer lately."

Sabine's artificially crimson mouth took on a slow smile. "It would be too bad if the Pentland family drove two wives insane—one after the other."

Again Aunt Cassie came near to defeat by losing her composure. She snorted, and Sabine helped her out by asking: "And Anson?" ironically. "What is dear Anson doing?"

She told him of Anson's great work, "The Pentland Family and the Massachusetts Bay Colony" and of its immense value as a contribution to the history of the nation; and when she had finished with that, she turned to Jack's wretched health, saying in a low, melancholy voice, "It's only a matter of time, you know. . . . At least, so the doctors say. . . . With a heart like that it's only a matter of time." The tears came again.

"And yet," Sabine said slowly, "You say that Olivia has everything."

"Well," replied Aunt Cassie, "perhaps not everything."

Before she left she inquired for Sabine's daughter and was told that she had gone over to Pentlands to see Sybil.

"They went to the same school in France," said Sabine. "They were friends there."

"Yes," said Aunt Cassie. "I was against Sybil's going abroad to school. It fills a girl's head with queer ideas . ..