Perhaps the most indefinable change had come over Claire’s home life.  Her mother’s unfailing string of trivial gossip, formerly not without a certain interest, now scarcely held her to even polite attention.  Indeed, her self-absorbed silence, while Mrs. Robson poured out the latest news about Mrs. Finnegan’s second sister’s husband’s mother—­who was suddenly stricken with some incurable disease, made all the more mysterious by the fact that its nature was not divulged—­was so apparent that her mother, goaded on to a mild exasperation, would ask, significantly: 

“What’s the matter, Claire?  Have you a headache?”

Mrs. Robson was never so happy as in the discovery of some one with a mysterious disease, particularly if the victim’s relatives were loath to discuss the issue.

“They think they fool me!” she would say, triumphantly, to Claire, “but I guess I know what ails her....  Didn’t her mother, and her uncle, and her sister’s oldest child die of consumption?  I tell you it’s in the family.  The last time I saw her she nearly coughed her head off.”

Not that Mrs. Robson was unsympathetic; brought face to face with suffering, she blossomed with every impulsive tenderness, but her experiences had confirmed her in pessimism, and every fresh tragedy testified to the soundness of her faith.  Her pride at diagnosing people’s ills and pronouncing their death-sentences was almost professional.  And she had an irritating way of making comments such as this: 

“Well, Claire, I see that old Mrs. Talbot is dead at last!...  I knew she wouldn’t live another winter.  They’ll feel terribly, no doubt; but, of course, it is a great relief.”

Or: 

“Why, here is the death notice of Isaac Rice!  I thought he died years ago.  My, but he was a trial!  What a blessing!”

This was the type of conversation that Claire was finding either empty of meaning or illuminating to the point of annoyance.  What amazed her was the fact that she had remained blind so long to the slightest of the conversational food upon which she had been fed.

Claire did not tell her mother about the invitation to Mrs. Condor’s musical evening.

“I’ll wait,” she said to herself.  “Thursday will be time enough.”  Although why delay would prove advantageous was not particularly apparent.

On Wednesday night at the dinner-table, Mrs. Robson, as if still puzzled at her daughter’s altered mood, said, rather cautiously: 

“There’s to be a reception at the church on Friday night.”

“For whom?” inquired Claire, with pallid interest.

“I didn’t quite catch the name....  Some woman back from France.  She’s been nursing in one of the British hospitals.  She’s to get Red Cross work started at the church.  It seems San Francisco is a bit slow over taking up the work, but, then, you know, we’re poked off here in a corner and I suppose we don’t quite realize yet....  Anyway, Mrs. Towne wants us to help with the coffee.  She says you should have been in the church-work long ago.  You look so self-contained and efficient....  I told her we would be there at half past seven and get the dishes into shape.”