Eva’s restless glance passed from object to object in the room. The stony eyes of the elderly lady remained fixed on her. What, she must have asked herself with natural irritation, would be accomplished by meeting an eye of stone? She said: “He doesn’t say.” She looked as if she might scream: I knew that she would scream, if Mrs. Van Suydam emitted her equivocal “Humph! Indeed!” To obviate this, I imagined, she rushed along with “I wished to--I thought it wise to talk it over with you.” She must have seen that Mrs. Van Suydam was making it impossible to talk over anything; but she must also, and immediately, have realized that she had come here because above all things she wished to break through the crust of this old lady’s resistance, to win from her one word of understanding, one softened glance of sympathy. Her desire was futile; and I saw that, in order to avert tears of weakness, of dashed hopes that only this minute she had possibly clearly acknowledged to herself, she began talking frantically. “You are a woman! You are a woman, too! And you’ve been married! You must have married a man like Nick! You could understand, if you would!” “And what, pray, am I to understand? I trust that it isn’t a question of a divorce?” But in her eyes, which for a second blazed straight at her daughter-in-law, there was every question between man and woman and her revulsion to the majority of them; and by her swift advancing of her assurance that no such thing could be in the wind she proved its presence in her mind. Eva’s repudiation of this contingency, while springing from selfishness which was on the other side of the fence from that of Mrs. Van Suydam, was of a like strength of purpose. “I assure you that there has never been a question of such a thing coming about. This is a matter of business solely.” “Business? Well, that,” asserted Mrs. Van Suydam untruthfully, “is beyond my province. I don’t--really--grasp what you mean to infer, by mentioning business in connection with my son’s wife going to a place like Hollywood.” “It is purely a question of money,” Eva explained earnestly. She leaned forward, eagerly searching the face of the elder woman. “Yes?” Mrs. Van Suydam injected into the monosyllable her inbred distaste for social mention of finances. She turned to me. “Mrs. Avery, I cannot express my regret that you should have been brought--against your will, I am sure!--into a discussion of this sort.” “If you will let me explain----” the young woman began. Mrs. Van Suydam made a careless gesture of repudiation. “Not called for.” Once more leaning forward eagerly, Eva said on a rush of desire to be friends: “You mean that you do understand--you do really understand?” “My dear Eva,” Mrs. Van Suydam suddenly attacked her, “why do you always explain? Is it because you suspect that you are--usually--wrong?”