SYLVIA PARTS FROM HER MOTHER
Meanwhile Mrs. Thesiger laughed her shrill laugh and
chatted noisily in the garden of the hotel. She
picnicked on the day of Sylvia’s ascent amongst
the sham ruins on the road to Sallanches with a few
detached idlers of various nationalities.
“Quite, quite charming,” she cried, and
she rippled with enthusiasm over the artificial lake
and the artificial rocks amongst which she seemed so
appropriate a figure; and she shrugged her pretty shoulders
over the eccentricities of her daughter, who was undoubtedly
burning her complexion to the color of brick-dust
among those stupid mountains. She came back a
trifle flushed in the cool of the afternoon, and in
the evening slipped discreetly into the little Cercle
at the back of the Casino, where she played baccarat
in a company which flattery could hardly have termed
doubtful. She was indeed not displeased to be
rid of her unsatisfactory daughter for a night and
a couple of days.
“Sylvia won’t fit in.”
Thus for a long time she had been accustomed piteously
to complain; and with ever more reason. Less
and less did Sylvia fit in with Mrs. Thesiger’s
scheme of life. It was not that the girl resisted
or complained. Mrs. Thesiger would have understood
objections and complaints. She would not have
minded them; she could have coped with them.
There would have been little scenes, with accusations
of ingratitude, of undutifulness, and Mrs. Thesiger
was not averse to the excitement of little scenes.
But Sylvia never complained; she maintained a reserve,
a mystery which her mother found very uncomfortable.
“She has no sympathy,” said Mrs. Thesiger.
Moreover, she would grow up, and she would grow up
in beauty and in freshness. Mrs. Thesiger did
her best. She kept her dressed in a style which
suited a younger girl, or rather, which would have
suited a younger girl had it been less decorative and
extreme. Again Sylvia did not complain.
She followed her usual practice and shut her mind
to the things which displeased her so completely, that
they ceased to trouble her. But Mrs. Thesiger
never knew that secret; and often, when in the midst
of her chatter she threw a glance at the elaborate
figure of her daughter, sitting apart with her lace
skirts too short, her heels too high, her hat too
big and too fancifully trimmed, she would see her
madonna-like face turned toward her, and her dark eyes
thoughtfully dwelling upon her. At such times
there would come an uncomfortable sensation that she
was being weighed and found wanting; or a question
would leap in her mind and bring with it fear, and
the same question which she had asked herself in the
train on the way to Chamonix.
“You ask me about my daughter?” she once
exclaimed pettishly to Monsieur Pettigrat. “Upon
my word, I really know nothing of her except one ridiculous
thing. She always dreams of running water.
Now, I ask you, what can you do with a daughter so
absurd that she dreams of running water?”
