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She wanted Wallie to settle down. She was tired of paying his bills at
his clubs and at various hotels, tired and weary of the days he lay in
bed all morning while his valet concocted various things to enable him
to pull himself together. He had been four years sowing his wild oats,
and now at twenty-five she felt he should be through with them.
The south room could be the nursery.
On Decoration Day, as usual, she did her dutiful best by the community,
sent flowers to the cemetery and even stood through a chilly hour there
while services were read and taps sounded over the graves of those who
had died in three wars. She felt very grateful that Wallie had come back
safely, and that if only now he would marry and settle down all would be
well.
The service left her emotionally untouched. She was one of those women
who saw in war, politics, even religion, only their reaction on
herself and her affairs. She had taken the German deluge as a personal
affliction. And she stood only stoically enduring while the village
soprano sang "The Star Spangled Banner." By the end of the service she
had decided that Elizabeth Wheeler was the answer to her problem.
Rather under pressure, Wallie lunched with her at the country club, but
she found him evasive and not particularly happy.
"You're twenty-five, you know," she said, toward the end of a
discussion. "By thirty you'll be too set in your habits, too hard to
please."
"I'm not going to marry for the sake of getting married, mother."
"Of course not. But you have a good bit of money. You'll have much more
when I'm gone. And money carries responsibility with it."
He glanced at her, looked away, rapped a fork on the table cloth.
"It takes two to make a marriage, mother."
He closed up after that, but she had learned what she wanted.
At three o'clock that afternoon the Sayre limousine stopped in front of
Nina's house, and Mrs. Sayre, in brilliant pink and a purple hat, got
out. Leslie, lounging in a window, made the announcement.
"Here's the Queen of Sheba," he said. "I'll go upstairs and have a
headache, if you don't mind."
He kissed Nina and departed hastily. He was feeling extremely gentle
toward Nina those days and rather smugly virtuous. He considered that
his conscience had brought him back and not a very bad fright, which was
the fact, and he fairly exuded righteousness.
It was the great lady's first call, and Nina was considerably uplifted.
It was for such moments as this one trained servants and put Irish lace
on their aprons, and had decorators who stood off with their heads a
little awry and devised backgrounds for one's personality.