Mother laughed out.  Her rare laugh was too sudden and loud to be very musical, but it was immensely infectious, like a man’s hearty mirth.  “I didn’t hear her say it—­but I can imagine that she did.  Well, what of it?  What if she did?”

For once Sylvia did not respond to another’s mood.  She continued anxiously, “Well, it means something perfectly horrid, doesn’t it?”

Mother was still laughing.  “No, no, child, what in the world makes you think that?”

“Oh, if you’d heard Aunt Victoria say it!” cried Sylvia with conviction.  Father came out on the veranda, saying to Mother, “Isn’t that crescendo superb?” To Sylvia he said, as though sure of her comprehension, “Didn’t you like the ending, dear—­where it sounded like the Argonauts all striking the oars into the water at once and shouting?”

Sylvia had been taught above everything to tell the truth.  Moreover (perhaps a stronger reason for frankness), Mother was there, who would know whether she told the truth or not.  “I didn’t hear the end.”

Father looked quickly from Sylvia’s face to her mother’s.  “What’s the matter?” he asked.

“Sylvia was so concerned because her Aunt Victoria had called our life idyllic that she couldn’t think of anything else,” explained Mother briefly, still smiling.  Father did not smile.  He sat down by Sylvia and had her repeat to him what she had said to her mother.  When she had finished he looked grave and said:  “You mustn’t mind what your Aunt Victoria says, dear.  Her ideas are very different from ours.”

Sylvia’s mother cried out, “Why, a child of Sylvia’s age couldn’t have taken in the significance of—­”

“I’m afraid,” said Father, “that Sylvia’s very quick to take in such a significance.”

Sylvia remained silent, uncomfortable at being discussed, vaguely ashamed of herself, but comforted that Father had not laughed, had understood.  As happened so frequently, it was Father who understood and Mother who did the right thing.  She suddenly made an enigmatic, emphatic exclamation, “Goodness gracious!” and reaching out her long arms, pulled Sylvia up on her lap, holding her close.  The last thought of that remembered time for Sylvia was that Mother’s arms were very strong, and her breast very soft.  The little girl laid her head down on it with a contented sigh, watching the slow, silent procession of the stars.

CHAPTER II

THE MARSHALLS’ FRIENDS

Any one of the more sophisticated members of the faculty of the State University at La Chance would have stated without hesitation that the Marshalls had not the slightest part in the social activities of the University; but no one could have called their life either isolated or solitary.  Sylvia, in her memories of childhood, always heard the low, brown house ringing with music or echoing to the laughter and talk of many voices.  To begin with, a good many of Professor Marshall’s students came and went familiarly through the plainly furnished rooms, although there was, of course, in each year’s class, a little circle of young people with a taste for social distinctions who held aloof from the very unselect and heterogeneous gatherings at the Marshall house.