There was now no politeness lost between us; and I had the less reluctance to intrude upon whatever conversation they purposed having. I took a chair removed from theirs, and resigned myself to a laceration of the sensibilities that I hoped to conceal under glacial composure. The Van Suydams had the gift of their imposing silence. It seemed a long time before she remarked that it was a pleasant day. She dropped this into the well of silence as if Eva had been a chance acquaintance. It would not have mattered whether Eva found the day pleasant or the reverse, as it would not have altered conditions in the drawing-room if all storms had raged outside. By contrast to the glazed surface of Mrs. Van Suydam’s fine indifference, Eva’s brusqueness amounted to bravado. “I’m going to Hollywood.” Mrs. Van Suydam murmured: “Indeed?” Eva must push against the erection of her mother-in-law’s impersonality; she was not to be helped: this much was certain. She said bluntly that she had arrived at a stalemate in her work. “I don’t think I understand,” advanced the elder woman. “Naturally, I know little about it.” Eva’s resentment flared. “You’ve never let me tell you about it.” “I took it for granted,” rejoined Mrs. Van Suydam, “that you fancied I couldn’t understand.” She paused, and added, her face buttoned up: “I understand much.” Thus brought to a pause, floundering helplessly in the hugger-mugger brought about by her mother-in-law’s will, Eva sat mute. Until this bulwark of Nicholas’ rights presented a weak joint, there was nothing she could do or say. And weakness of any kind, even, at the moment, the weakness of advancing age, was hard to credit to the list of Mrs. Van Suydam’s possibilities. She sat upright--she never lolled--gazing blandly at her son’s wife; and if there was anything to talk over, any loose ends left between them, it seemed a remote contingency from the standpoint of Mrs. Van Suydam’s own understanding of the situation. Eva, it was clear, felt a singular reluctance to speak. The elder woman had--although one began to wonder if even this ignorance could be accurately attributed to her--a technical ignorance of the craft of writing; but in her choice of words when engaged in an encounter she found no difficulty in making her shades of meaning plain. She put, now, only the faintest accent on her “And what does my son say to this scheme of yours?” By an inflexion she had repudiated, for all those born of the Van Suydam blood, any knowledge whatsoever of Hollywood.