Foat in person had
returned from the summer-land (to which she had some time since taken
her flight), she would not have disturbed Mrs. Tarrant's almost cynical
equanimity.
It was, however, in her social subtleties that she was most beyond her
daughter; it was when she discovered extraordinary though latent
longings on the part of people they met to make their acquaintance, that
the girl became conscious of how much she herself had still to learn.
All her desire was to learn, and it must be added that she regarded her
mother, in perfect good faith, as a wonderful teacher. She was perplexed
sometimes by her worldliness; that, somehow, was not a part of the
higher life which every one in such a house as theirs must wish above
all things to lead; and it was not involved in the reign of justice,
which they were all trying to bring about, that such a strict account
should be kept of every little snub. Her father seemed to Verena to move
more consecutively on the high plane; though his indifference to
old-fashioned standards, his perpetual invocation of the brighter day,
had not yet led her to ask herself whether, after all, men are more
disinterested than women. Was it interest that prompted her mother to
respond so warmly to Miss Chancellor, to say to Verena, with an air of
knowingness, that the thing to do was to go in and see her
_immediately_? No italics can represent the earnestness of Mrs.
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