Page:The Green Bay Tree (1926).pdf/23



ROM her point of vantage on the wistaria clad piazza, the old woman watched the little drama at the en trance to the Park, and when the gates had been flung closed once more, she moved back into the cool shadows, still wondering where Lily and Irene and the Governor could have hidden themselves. She settled herself on an iron bench, praying that no one would pass to disturb her, and at the same moment the sound of sobbing reached her ears. It came from the inside of the house, from the library just beyond the tall window. There, in a corner beyond the great silver mounted globe, Irene had flung herself down and was weeping. The half-suppressed sobs shook the girl's frail body. Her muslin dress with the blue sash was crushed and damp. The mother bent over her and drew the girl into a sitting posture against the brocade of the rosewood sofa.

"Come, Irene," said the old woman. "It is no time for tears. There is time enough when this infernal crowd is gone. What is it? What has come over you since yesterday?"

The girl's sobs grew more faint but she did not answer nor raise her head. She was frail and blond with wide blue eyes set far apart. Her thick hair was done low at the back of her neck. She had a small pretty mouth and a rather prominent nose. Her mother must have resembled her before she hardened into a cynical old woman, before the prominent nose became an eagle's beak and the small pretty mouth a thin-lipped sardonic one. The mother, puzzled and silent, sat stiffly beside the sobbing girl, fingering all the while the chain of amethysts set in Spanish silver.

"Are you tired?" she asked presently.

"No,"

"Then what is it, Irene? There must be some reason. Girls don't behave like this for nothing. What have you done that has made you miserable?"