Page:The time spirit; a romantic tale (IA timespiritromant00snaiiala).pdf/87

 "No," said Milly. "But he's seen a lot of life out West."

Before other questions could rise to Mary's lips, Mrs. Wren came in. Milly's mother was an elderly lady who had been on the stage. In the first flight of her profession, life had given her many a shrewd knock, but in the process she had picked up a considerable knowledge of the world and its ways. She lived for Milly, in whom her every thought was centered, for in the daughter the mother lived again. Intensely ambitious for her, Mrs. Wren was a little inclined to resent the intrusion within the nest of a bird of such dazzling plumage as Mary Lawrence. At the same time that honest woman well knew that her daughter had more to gain than she had to lose by sharing a roof with such a supremely attractive stable companion.

Mrs. Wren found it very difficult to place Mary Lawrence. In ideas and outlook, in the face she showed to the world, she was far from being a typical member of her calling as the good lady knew it. As Mrs. Wren reckoned success, this girl had won it on two continents almost too abundantly, but she seemed to hold it very cheap. Perhaps it had been gained too easily. Milly's mother, rather jealous, rather ambitious as she was, could hardly find it in her heart to say it was undeserved, but Mary Lawrence took the high gifts of fortune so much for granted, almost as if they were a birthright, that the mother of her friend, remembering the long years of her own thornily-crowned servitude, and Milly's hard struggle "to arrive," could not help a feeling of secret envy.