Page:The Blind Bow-Boy (IA blindbowboy00vanv).pdf/169

 better so. Boys, she felt, developed more rapidly and more individually if they did not live too much with their parents. Their grandfather, she knew, would permit them to do anything they wanted to do, and she was satisfied that this was the only way to bring children up successfully. Cupid, to be sure, went down to Southampton about twice a month. He was romantically attached to his sons and cherished a father's conventional ideas, but he, as much as their grandfather, could be depended upon not to interfere with their wishes. He wanted them to love him, and Campaspe felt certain that he would never thwart their desires for fear of sacrificing that love. Ironically enough, the boys loved their mother more than they did their father. This, in a way, justified her course of action; not that Campaspe ever sought justification for her acts, but sometimes it gave her a certain human amount of pleasure to realize that she was right. . . . Later, in boarding-school, there would be interference, of course, but that was external interference of the kind the boys might afterwards expect in life and consequently good for them; it had nothing to do with the family.

The next letter she opened was from Laura, who was spending the summer in the Berkshires. She, too, wanted Campaspe to join her. All the world, it would seem, was calling for Campaspe, but this was invariably true, she realized, when one was enjoying oneself. It was only when one felt lonely