mal leave-taking when their
selfish affairs were concluded. It must be the contact of the vulgar
earth--this wretched, cracking, material, and yet ungovernable and
lawless earth--that so depraved them. She felt she would like to say
this to some one--not her father, for he wouldn't listen to her, nor to
the major, who would laughingly argue with her, but to Mrs. Randolph,
who would understand her, and perhaps say it some day in her own
sharp, sneering way to these very clowns. With those gentle sentiments
irradiating her blue eyes, and putting a pink flush upon her fair
cheeks, Rose reached the garden with the intention of rushing
sympathetically into Mrs. Randolph's arms. But it suddenly occurred
to her that she would be obliged to state how she became aware of this
misfortune, and with it came an instinctive aversion to speak of her
meeting with the inventor. She would wait until Mrs. Randolph told her.
But although that lady was engaged in a low-voiced discussion in French
with Emile and Adele, which instantly ceased at her approach, there was
no allusion made to the new calamity. "You need not telegraph to your
father," she said as Rose approached, "he has already telegraphed to you
for news; as you were out, and the messenger was waiting an answer, we
opened the dispatch, and sent one, telling him that you were all right,
and that he need not hurry here on your account. So you are satisfied,
I hope." A few hours ago this would have been true, and Rose would have
probably seen in the action of her hostess only a flattering motherly
supervision; there was, in fact, still a lingering trace of trust in her
mind yet she was conscious that she would have preferred to answer the
dispatch herself, and to have let her father come. To a girl brought
up with a belief in the right of individual independence of thought and
action, there was something in Mrs. Randolph's practical ignoring of
that right which startled her in spite of her new conservatism, while,
as the daughter of a business man, her instincts revolted against Mrs.
Randolph's unbusiness-like action with the telegram, however vulgar and
unrefined she may have begun to consider a life of business. The
result was a certain constraint and embarrassment in her manner, which,
however, had the laudable effect of limiting Emile's attention to
significant glances, and was no doubt variously interpreted by the
others. But she satisfied her conscience by determining to make a