They went down the stairs in silence, tall mother and tall daughter, both sobered, both frightened at what might be in the other’s mind, and at what might be before them, and entered the low-ceilinged living-room together.  A pale woman, apparently as apprehensive as they, rose in a haste that had almost some element of apology in it, and offered her hand to Mrs. Marshall.  “I’m Mrs. Fiske,” she said hurriedly, in a low voice, “Jerry’s stepmother, you know.  I hope you won’t mind my coming to see you.  What a perfectly lovely home you have!  I was wishing I could just stay and stay in this room.”  She spoke rapidly with the slightly incoherent haste of shy people overcoming their weakness, and glanced alternately, with faded blue eyes, at Sylvia and at her mother.  In the end she remained standing, looking earnestly into Mrs. Marshall’s face.  That lady now made a step forward and again put out her hand with an impulsive gesture at which Sylvia wondered.  She herself had felt no attraction towards the thin, sickly woman who had so little grace or security of manner.  It was constantly surprising Sylvia to discover how often people high in social rank seemed to possess no qualifications for their position.  She always felt that she could have filled their places with vastly more aplomb.

“I’m very glad to see you,” said Mrs. Marshall in a friendly tone.  “Do sit down again.  Sylvia, go and make us some tea, won’t you?  Mrs. Fiske must be cold after driving out here from town.”

When Sylvia came back ten minutes later, she found the guest saying, “My youngest is only nine months old, and he is having such a time with his teeth.”

“Oh!” thought Sylvia scornfully, pouring out the tea.  “She’s that kind of a woman, is she?” With the astonishingly quick shifting of viewpoint of the young, she no longer felt the least anxiety that her home, or even that she herself should make a good impression on this evidently quite negligible person.  Her anguish about the ceremony of opening the door seemed years behind her.  She examined with care all the minutiae of the handsome, unindividualized costume of black velvet worn by their visitor, but turned an absent ear to her talk, which brought out various facts relating to a numerous family of young children.  “I have six living,” said Mrs. Fiske, not meeting Mrs. Marshall’s eyes as she spoke, and stirring her tea slowly, “I lost four at birth.”

Sylvia was indeed slightly interested to learn through another turn of the conversation that the caller, who looked to her unsympathetic eyes any age at all, had been married at eighteen, and that that was only thirteen years ago.  Sylvia thought she certainly looked older than thirty-one, advanced though that age was.