The Empty Sack

y Collingham, Junior, have arrived at Collingham Lodge, Marillo Park, from their camp in the Adirondacks, their farm in Dutchess County, or their apartment in Fifth Avenue, the implications ar

s, of the club, the swimming pool, the riding school, the golf links; but only experience could give you that sense of being beyond contact with outside vulgarity which is Marillo's specialty. Against its high stone wall outside vulgarity breaks as the sea against a cliff; b

ct that he was not good-looking for the reason that, in his role of Satan, it was an added touch of the diabolic. Tall, thin, and stormy eyed, his knifelike features were streaked with dark shadows which seemed to fall in the wrong places in h

awns melted into one another with no other hint of demarcation than could be sketched by clumps of shrubs or skillfully scattered trees. You could be off the Collingham grounds a

ingham had pointed out to her husband when her suspicions were first roused. "

ld throw together any two young people minded so to come. In such spacious freedom, an ineligible young

idity of the young pair's movements and the animation of their gestures, Mrs. Collingham judged that they were very much in earnest. Looking out fro

flinging their flame and crimson up into a golden sky, the two figures passing and repassing the long French windows were little more than silhouettes. Such scraps of their phrases as drifted her way told her that

ristocratically regular and clear-cut. Her hair, prematurely white, lent itself to the simplest dressing, too classic to be a mode. A figure, of which it would have been vulgar to use the

forward. Her professor being given a bow so cold that it was tantamount to a dismissal, as a dismissal was obl

had the exquisite precision

not to encourage that imposs

ing without encouragement

eworks. On each of the two lower terraces fountains played, their back drops falling on the water lillies

the faintest idea of a mother

fference between the two generations in the family

wonder if a mother has the faintest idea

vement, Mrs. Collingham thr

I approach middle age, we feel that yo

n I say that we wouldn't disappoint you willingly.

's and mine-are s

y Bob's and mi

utiful. Leaning nonchalantly against the high, carved back of a teakwood chair, the figure had a leopard grace to which the owner seemed indifferent. Indifference, boredom, dissatisfaction focused the expression of t

round with an ai

ou're not pretty, but you're not ugly; and you've a kind of witchiness most pretty girls have to do without. I

game was wort

me game is wor

one, of taking-in the way you s

girl

of course-only,

kind? That's what

wistful smile that merely fluttered o

can't explain to yo

far apart

only that I'm myself, while you wa

ng but what will mak

see it for me-not as

Edith. I can't be wi

her racket from the teakwood chair and moved toward the house. On a note that wo

moment since you were born when I haven't dre

a brilliant future, as you call it, when

s mother w

t I resent. Don't think for a minute that your father

re was any questio

ty professor-never in this world; and if it comes to ou

eyes. For an instant the conflict of wills seemed about to break out into mutual

take that responsib

of the danger of collision, she subside

your father knew about this Folle

-beyond the few hints dropped by Hube

he war, I suppose. If he'd

es; and if he marries, it will have

marry a girl

class? What's

son, who stood on the threshol

ying outside of their own class, Bob, a

ht they'd rung the bells on them even at Marillo. Wasn't it one of

fathers and mothers have worked to bu

h the opening and came out on the terrace joyously. Wagging his powerful tail and sniffing about each of the ladies

ation. Going up to his mother, he slippe

rned out to be a rotten old world which they've handed to us to bolster up.

his embrace, she stood

f our hopes, you'll have to learn, Bob, that your father and mot

e placed us, we're crazy to go on to something else. Isn't that the way of life-the perpetual struggle for what we haven't got? Because y

wells a baby's head. They used to think it was a specially American disease till they found out it was English, French, German, and ev

er been anything but a poor mother, s

ease of swelled head is being got under control, as they say of epidemics. Only the left-overs catch it still, and Edith a

nks,

nk me. I'm jus

int of your

e poor, because the poor don't wear that kind of thing, and the rich have gone on to a new fashion. Listen, old lady. The thing I'd hate worst of all for dad and you is to see you left be

h, Bob, I should underst

s left hand with the forefinger of the right, while Max

ou the line to take if you want to remain the u

ld be g

kick." He summoned his forces to speak strongly. "If Edith was to pick out a man she wanted to ma

oy was stifled by the appearance on the terrace of Dauphin, the Irish setter, who was consciously the dog en t?tre of the master of the house. Mrs. Collingham composed herself. Edith picked up a tennis

in that Collingham was tired. His shoulders

ghed, sinking into

r fa

s shoulder. He drew it dow

e was his wife's. "We were just going to have it.

out again. By the time he had

y. Among other things I've

vil you

heartfelt as to turn al

asked, craftily, "what dif

pture a position he was

ference to me, but-but h

our respon

to her brot

e's responsib

it. Bob doesn't have to sadd

father, his mother wouldn't speak too

her? Unle

on exchanged

o-very far ou

did go-very far

ve it with your fathe

the first time dad's

ng with one leg thrown across the other, h

schooled, hopeless conviction. "Inside, it's no go. Once you admit the principl

Edith objected. "Aren't we beginning to realize that the wel

up with a kind of

, Edie, but an efficiency ex

nothing but the individual private, whereas a political

d it had he dared, but for daring it was too late. He had trained himself otherwise. On a basis of expert advi

id you h

Mr. Ayling's last book, The

ow into the house, her mother turned

you? She has the effrontery to re

Collingham looked, with welcome, toward Goss