The Family
dinner-table, if Tom, forgetting himself in talk,
sometimes dropped back into railroad lunchcounter ways and pushed his plate away from him
when he had finished a course, Lillian’s face would
become positively cruel in its contempt. Irregularities of that sort put her all on edge. But Louie
could hurry audibly through his soup, or kiss her
resoundingly on the cheek at a faculty reception,
and she seemed to like it.
Yes, with her sons-in-law she had begun the game of being a woman all over again. She dressed for them, planned for them, schemed in their interests. She had begun to entertain more than for years past —the new house made a plausible pretext—and to use her influence and charm in the little anxious social world of Hamilton. She was intensely interested in the success and happiness of these two young men, lived in their careers as she had once done in his. It was splendid, St. Peter told himself. She wasn’t going to have to face a stretch of boredom between being a young woman and being a young grandmother. She was less intelligent and more sensible than he had thought her.
When Godfrey came downstairs ready for dinner, Louie was gone. He walked up to the chair where his wife was reading, and took her hand.
“My dear,” he said quite delicately, “I wish you could keep Louie from letting his name go up for the Arts and Letters. It’s not safe yet. He’s not
—79—
