Ever After by Elswyth Thane

Virginia went to the rescue. “It’s all right, darling, we don’t in the least mind seeing it again. Behave yourself, Bracken, isn’t it about time you went to work?”
    “By the way, when is Easter this year?” remarked Bracken sotto voce, glancing at the clock and picking up his hat. “Oh, I say, that’s much too long! Whatever will I do with myself till then? Yah, it’s a way they have in the Army!”
    There was a silence when he had gone. Then Virginia caught Sue’s troubled, doubtful eyes and laughed again.
    “Honey, you look so guilty !” she said. “You mustn’t mind Bracken, and anyway, I think it’s cute.”
    “But, Virginia, the Major didn’t really take any notice of me, that is, he was just being kind because I’m not your mother, and he could see that I felt strange here—he’s a very kind-hearted man, you can see that,” she pointed out earnestly.
    “Oh, very! I’m sure the Dervishes would agree with you!” said Virginia solemnly.
    He sent them flowers, which arrived while they were dressing for dinner. Camellias for Virginia—and for Sue, red roses. Bracken’s left eyebrow flew up when he saw them, and Virginia pinched him, hard, so he said nothing. Sue seemed quite unconscious of the significance of red roses, and only said how well they went with her new evening bodice, and how had he guessed what colour she was going to wear. Virginia, choosing a pink silk muslin dress in honour of her camellias, wondered who was going to be chaperoning whom, at this rate.
    Sue had always shied from décolletage when dining in a restaurant, and her evening bodice, which was of pale blue Russian net over grey glacé silk, had a high blue satin collar-band topped by a lace Toby-frill which framed her face. The long sleeves were tight from the ruffled wrists to above the elbow, where a wide double net ruffle made fullness to the shoulder. The red rosesnestled into a blue satin sash above an embroidered silk skirt. Virginia’s silk muslin was cut with a low V in front, and her long rucked sleeves and kilted flounces edged with lace were the very latest thing. They both wore short brocade theatre jackets banded with fur, and carried fans.
    The Major was proud of his handsome party and ordered champagne , which Sue had learned to appreciate, and Bracken alleged that his favourite aunt was rapidly becoming a drunkard. Sue protested hotly that she never had more than one glass, and Bracken agreed that she didn’t as a rule have one in each hand, if that was what she meant. The Major laughed delightedly at this rude family wit, and began to feel as though he had known these people all his life and would never part with them again. Their easy, unself-conscious affection for each other, their unfailing tenderness even in their teasing, bewitched his lonely heart into yearnings it had not felt for years. He had not been aware that life could be like this, warm and light and laughing, or that women could be so easy to talk to and to entertain.
    His own young wife, bearing and losing her first child in India all those years ago, had become in his memory a rather fretful wraith whom it had not been much fun to live with. These hearty American women with their expensive pretty clothes and their spontaneous gaiety and their cosseted confidence that all was for the best in this best of worlds were a revelation to him. And Sue, with those white threads in her coppery hair and some mysterious wisdom in her eyes seemed to him a dream come true—a dream he had hardly known he had. Not young enough to be frightening to a man of his years, but still young enough…. Now, look here, the Major told himself severely, if you go on like this, old boy, you’ll be making a complete ass of yourself.
    But before the evening was over, Sue, having had it pointed out to her at breakfast, began to perceive that the Major was perhaps being a little more than kind to her. No one else but Sedgwick had ever listened to her least remark