“No,” said Mrs. North. “At least I have _tried_, but it’s impossible to get anything out of her. It’s like talking to a stranger. Really, sometimes I’m frightened of her. It sounds ridiculous, of course, but there it is. And we used to be such good friends and tell each other everything.” “I am afraid she has never really got over Dick’s death,” said North, his manner appreciably gentler. “And possibly her marriage so soon after was not the wisest thing.” “You approved of it quite as much as I did.” “Certainly. I am not in any sense blaming you. Besides, Violet did not ask either our advice or our approval. My meaning rather is, that possibly she is paying now for what I own seemed to me at the time a quite amazing courage.” “She confided in you all that dreadful time far more than she did in me,” said Mrs. North fretfully, and with her pitiful inability to meet her husband when his natural kindness of heart or sense of duty moved him to try to discuss things of mutual interest with her in a friendly spirit. “If you had not taken her away from me then, it might have been different.” North shrugged his shoulders, and returned to his contemplation of the croquet lawn and Mansfield’s preparations. Violet had never from her babyhood been anything but a bone of contention, unless he had been content never to interfere or express opinions contrary to his wife’s. “What do you want me to do?” he asked. “Only show some natural interest in your own child,” she retorted. “But you never can talk anything over without being irritable. And as to her marriage with Fred, we were all agreed it was an excellent thing. Of course if you haven’t noticed how altered she is, it’s no good my telling you.” “I have noticed it,” said North shortly. “Well, what do you think we had better do?” “You really want my opinion?” North had said this before over other matters. He wrestled with the futility of saying it over this. But he knew that his wife was a devoted, if sometimes an unwise, mother, and he had on the whole been very generous to her with regard to their only child. He sympathized with her now in her anxiety. “Of course I do,” she responded. “Isn’t it what I’ve been saying all this time?” “Then honestly I don’t see what either you or I can do but stand by. She knows we’re there right enough, both of us. She can depend on Fred too, she knows that. But it seems to me that until she comes to us we’ve got to leave her alone to fight out whatever the trouble is in her own way. I think you are right—there _is_ trouble. But we can’t force her confidence and we should do no good if we did. I’m afraid you won’t think that much help.” He looked at her with some kindness. “But I believe it is quite sound advice.” “It’s dreadful to feel like a stranger with one’s own child,” complained Mrs. North. “It makes me perfectly miserable. Of course I don’t think a father feels the same as a mother.”