* * * * *

To-morrow—­which has become to-day.

I wonder if Mother knew what I had come into her little sitting-room this morning to say.  It seems as if she must have known.  And yet—­I had wondered how I was going to begin, but, before I knew it, I was right in the middle of it—­the subject, I mean.  That’s why I thought perhaps that Mother—­

But I’m getting as bad as little Mary Marie of the long ago.  I’ll try now to tell what did happen.

I was wetting my lips, and swallowing, and wondering how I was going to begin to tell her that I was planning not to go back to Jerry, when all of a sudden I found myself saying something about little Eunice.  And then Mother said: 

“Yes, my dear; and that’s what comforts me most of anything—­because you are so devoted to Eunice.  You see, I have feared sometimes—­for you and Jerry; that you might separate.  But I know, on account of Eunice, that you never will.”

“But, Mother, that’s the very reason—­I mean, it would be the reason,” I stammered.  Then I stopped.  My tongue just wouldn’t move, my throat and lips were so dry.

To think that Mother suspected—­knew already—­about Jerry and me; and yet to say that on account of Eunice I would not do it.  Why, it was for Eunice, largely, that I was going to do it.  To let that child grow up thinking that dancing and motoring was all of life, and—­

But Mother was speaking again.

“Eunice—­yes.  You mean that you never would make her go through what you went through when you were her age.”

“Why, Mother, I—­I—­” And then I stopped again.  And I was so angry and indignant with myself because I had to stop, when there were so many, many things that I wanted to say, if only my dry lips could articulate the words.

Mother drew her breath in with a little catch.  She had grown rather white.

“I wonder if you remember—­if you ever think of—­your childhood,” she said.

“Why, yes, of—­of course—­sometimes.”  It was my turn to stammer.  I was thinking of that diary that I had just read—­and added to.

Mother drew in her breath again, this time with a catch that was almost a sob.  And then she began to talk—­at first haltingly, with half-finished sentences; then hurriedly, with a rush of words that seemed not able to utter themselves fast enough to keep up with the thoughts behind them.

She told of her youth and marriage, and of my coming.  She told of her life with Father, and of the mistakes she made.  She told much, of course, that was in Mary Marie’s diary; but she told, too, oh, so much more, until like a panorama the whole thing lay before me.

Then she spoke of me, and of my childhood, and her voice began to quiver.  She told of the Mary and the Marie, and of the dual nature within me. (As if I didn’t know about that!) But she told me much that I did not know, and she made things much clearer to me, until I saw—­