your father?" For, as
often as not, Rosalind would speak of her husband as Sally's father.

"Not Jeremiah--no. I was talking about Julius B. and his nervous
system. Wouldn't it?"

"Wouldn't it what?"

"Make all the difference? I mean that he could get his violin-playing
back. I told you about that letter?"

"No--what letter?"

"From an agent in Paris. Rateau, I think, was the name. Had heard
Signor Carissimi had recovered his health completely, and was
playing. Hoped he might be honoured with his instructions to make
his arrangements in Paris, as he had done so four years ago. Wasn't
it aggravating?"

"Does it make any difference?"

"Why, of course it does, mother darling. The aggravation! Just think
now! Suppose he could rely on ten pounds a night, fancy that!"

"Suppose he could!... Yes, that would be nice." But there is a
preoccupation in her tone, and Sally wants sympathy to be drawn with
a vigorous outline.

"What's my maternal parent thinking about, as grave as a judge?
Jeremiah's all right, mammy darling! _He's_ not killed in a railway
accident. Catch _him_!" This is part of a systematized relationship
between the two. Each always discredits the possibility of mishap
to the other. It might be described as chronic reciprocal Christian
Science.

"I wasn't thinking of Gerry." Which is true in a sense, as she does
not think of the Gerry her daughter knows. And the partial untruth
does not cross her mind--a tacit recognition of the powers of change.
"I was wool-gathering."

"No--what _was_ she thinking of?" For some reason the third person
is thought more persuasive than the second.

"Thinking of her kitten." And this is true enough, as Rosalind is
really always thinking of Sally, more or less.

"We-ell, _I'm_ all right. What's the matter with _me_?"

"Nothing at all that I know of, darling." But it does cross the
speaker's mind that the context of circumstances might make this an
opportunity for getting at some information she wants. For Sally has
remained perfectly inscrutable about Conrad Vereker, and Rosalind has
been asking herself whether it is possible that, after all, there
_is_ nothing. She doesn't know how to set about it, though. Perhaps
the best thing would be to take a leaf out of Sally's own book, and
go straight to the bull's-eye.

"Do you really want to know what I was thinking of, Sallykin?" But
no sooner has she formulated the intention of asking a question, and
allowed the inte