Seed on the Wind

“Then she’s a pedant,” said Lora. “There’s nothing sacred about the position of a cow’s tail. Do you want to go back?”

“No. She blows her nose like this.” Roy pulled out his handkerchief, covered most of his face with it, and squealed like a mouse in a trap.

“Do it again,” said Panther, waddling over and looking up at him admiringly. That exhibition, Lora figured, cost at least an extra month in Panther’s education in the technique of nose-blowing.

Lewis Kane was never a member of the family motor excursions; indeed, he had never once entered the little apartment on Seventy-first Street. Lora mildly wondered why. Discretion, perhaps; but he had been to the door fifty times; he always got out of the car when he brought her home from dinner, handed her out, and escorted her to the vestibule. Was he waiting for an invitation? Improbable, for once when she had suggested that he might like to see the children enjoying the toys which his generosity had made possible he had passed it off with a reference to his unfortunate ineptitude with youngsters. She had never repeated the hint, thinking it just as well; he would be sufficiently a nuisance after Julian came. She had accepted the Julian with the same indifference with which she had greeted Helen’s transformation into Panther. If it were a daughter, presumably it would be Julia; but maybe not, since he already had one; at least his wife had.

One cold snowy afternoon in December, with Panther beside her in the blue sedan and Roy in front, she gave the chauffeur Anne Seaver’s address in Brooklyn. Leah, with Morris and his bottles and other paraphernalia, remained behind. The beige silk from Roy’s time, recalled to service two months back, and now covered by a warm fur coat, comfortably encircled her daily expanding rotundity. The ample fullness which had in September made it hang like an ill-made bag was now barely adequate; a seam might yet have to be altered if it kept up at this rate.

She wore the beige silk purposely, in ironic memory of a day five years earlier under circumstances which differed violently from the present in all respects but one — that one being the phenomenon which made the beige silk necessary. Anne had then hated her, with the hatred of the guilty for the innocent victim, but Lora had never hated Anne. Her present ironic gesture was friendly in its intent, and she knew it would not be resented. She had not seen Anne for many months, not since the days following Max’s death; and for one thing she thought that the sight of Roy might give her pleasure.

Anne was not at home. I should have telephoned, thought Lora; anyway it was a nice ride through the falling snow. But, the maid added, Mrs. Seaver was expected back at any moment, she had gone out for lunch and had said she would return at three. Lora took off the children’s wraps and her own, helped the maid with them to the hall, and entered the living room just in time to drag Roy out of the fireplace. When Anne came not long after she found them all seated on the rug in front of the fire; Roy was explaining to Panther why it made a fire go better to spit on it; Lora, unheeding, smiled at the flames.

“What a picture!” Anne exclaimed, advancing on them. She was tall and slender, not quite filled out anywhere, with long straight legs and arms, a thin neck that showed the tendons, a good forehead and nose and chin but everything a little too sharp; twenty pounds tastefully distributed would have done wonders.

“I’m too comfortable to get up,” said Lora. “Roy, you remember Anne Seaver, don’t you? Of course you do. Anne, dear, you look younger and more virginal every day. Now that I’m here I wonder why I stayed away so long. Roy, don’t you remember Anne Seaver?”

Roy ducked his head and mumbled, “Hello.”

“Of course you do,” said Anne. “Don’t you remember, a long time ago, I gave you the red engine with a whistle on it?”

“It’s broke.”

“Yes, it would be. We must get another. Heavens, how you’ve grown! And Helen too — Lora, she’s as beautiful as a dream. Albert’s nose and mouth, obviously, don’t you think? But where’s the baby?”

Spiteful nervous woman, thought Lora; but no, probably it was envy, not spite, and certainly she had been helpful and sympathetic about Max, more really than had been required. Anne sat beside her on the rug, and they gazed into the fire together and answered each other’s questions, while Panther nodded drowsily and finally slept and Roy tiptoed from room to room in search of a cat which he had seen gliding shadowlike from underneath a sofa. Lora learned that Mr. Seaver, Anne’s husband, had been made vice-president of something or other and had subscribed to the opera; furthermore, that they had definitely decided on a trip to Europe the coming summer.

“I don’t suppose you’ll go to China,” Lora remarked.

Anne gave her a sharp glance, then said quietly, “That’s nasty, isn’t it?”

“I suppose it is,” Lora agreed. “But surely, after five years, you don’t mean to say you’re still tender about him?”