She wished to conform to
her mother's exigent standard, but she could not, all at once, and be a
girl too--a girl of sixteen, a little off the key physically, not having
come to a woman's repose of movement; a little stridulous mentally, but
pulsing with life's dumb music of aspiration; as intense as her mother in
feeling, without her mother's power to throw off the strain in words.
"Well, mother?" she questioned.
"She is older than you, and she will be at home. The advances, of course,
must come from her, but I hope, dear, you will not be--you will try to be
responsive?"
"I never know, mother, when I am not responsive. It's like wrinkling my
forehead; it does itself."
Mrs. Valentin made a gesture expressive of the futility of argument under
certain not unfamiliar conditions.
"'You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.' I am
leading my Pegasus to the fountain of--what was the fountain?"
Elsie laughed. "Your Pegasus is pretty heavy on the wing, mammy. But I will
drink. I will gorge myself, truly I will. The money shall not be spent in
vain."
"Oh, the money! Who cares about the money?--if only there were more of it.
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