Page:The Green Bay Tree (1926).pdf/24

 "Nothing," sobbed the girl. "Nothing!"

The mother sat up a little straighter and began to trace with her ebony stick the outlines of the roses on the Aubusson carpet. At length she spoke again in a clear, hard voice.

"Then you must pull yourself together and come out. I want you to find Lily and the Governor.—Every one is leaving and they should be here. There's no use in giving a party for him if he is going to snub the politicians. . . . Here—sit up! . . . Turn round while I fasten your hair."

With perfect deliberation the mother arranged the girl's hair, smoothed the crumpled muslin of her dress, patted straight the blue ribbon sash, dried her eyes, and bade her stand away to be surveyed.

"Now," she said in the same crisp voice, "You look all right . . . I can't have you behaving like this. . . . You should be out in the garden. Before I die, Irene, I want to see you married. You never will be if you hide yourself where no one can see you. . . . I don't worry over Lily—she can take care of herself. Go and find them and bring them back. . . . Tell them I said to return at once."

The girl, without a word, went out of the room into the big dark hallway and thence into the garden. Her mother's voice was one made to command. It was seldom that any one refused to carry out her orders. When Irene reached the terrace the guests were making their way back toward the house in little groups of two or three, ladies in summer dresses very tight at the waists, shielding their complexions from the June sun with small, bright-colored parasols. . . Mrs. Mills, the rector's wife, Miss Bird, the Town librarian, Mrs. Smyth, wife of the Methodist clergyman, Mrs. Miliken, wife of the sheriff, Miss Abercrombie, Mrs. .. . And behind them, the husbands, and the stray politicians who treated the little arbor over the punch bowl as though it were a corner saloon. The punch was gone now and the last of the pink ices melted. From other parts of the garden more guests made their way toward the house. "Irene passed them, bowing and forcing herself to smile though the effort brought her a kind of physical pain. Among the rhododendrons she came upon a little terra cotta Virgin and Child brought by father from Sienna