THE GENERAL MANAGER

"Mother, don't you think that you are being rather hard on Irene to undertake to hold her to restrictions to which she has never been accustomed, and which to her seem narrow and unreasonable?"

Erskine Burnham had followed his mother to her room evidently with a view to speaking to her alone, his wife having gone on into her own room and closed the door. Even though she had not felt it in the tone of his voice, Mrs. Burnham would have known by her son's opening word that he was annoyed.

He rarely used the word "mother" when addressing her directly. As a rule the habits of his childhood prevailed, and "mamma" was the name in frequent use; or, oftener still perhaps, when they were quite alone, his special pet name for her, "mommie," came naturally to his lips. But of late she had heard, oftener than ever before, what was to him a colder term "Mother," and had learned to know what it meant.

She hesitated a moment before replying, and her hesitation seemed to irritate her son. He spoke quickly, with a note in his voice which she had never found in it before.

"I must confess, mother, that I am surprised and not a little disappointed at the course you are taking. When I brought Irene here, it was not only in the hope but the assured belief that I was bringing her to what she had never really had before—a mother,—and that you would become to her in time, what you have always been to me. I never for a moment dreamed of your standing coldly at one side, not only indifferent to her innocent devices for pleasure, but actually blocking her way! If I could have imagined such a condition of things, I would have better understood her feeling from the very first that we ought to go into a house of our own, where she would not feel herself an interloper."

Mrs. Burnham was ready then with her reply.

"Erskine, I do not think Irene could have understood me. I made no attempt to hold her to any restrictions. She asked a direct question about my own views, which, of course, I answered. But I ought not to have to explain to my son that I do not try to force my opinions upon any one."

He made a movement of impatience.

"That kind of thing is not necessary, mother, between us; but you know very well that there are ways of expressing one's opinions that effectually trammel others of the same household.

"The simple truth is that Irene has played cards, for amusement, in her own and her friends' parlors, ever since she was old enough to play games of any kind; and to her, our ideas concerning cards seem as absurd as though applied to tennis or golf. Personally, I see no reason why she should not continue to amuse herself in her own way. It is true I do not play cards; but she knows, what both you and I understand perfectly, that this is a concession on my part to the extreme views of my mother, who could hardly expect my wife to have exactly the same spirit. I have told Irene that out of deference to your feelings, I do not want her to entertain her friends with cards, in the parlors, but she certainly ought to be left free to do in her own rooms what she pleases."

At almost any other period in Mrs. Burnham's life, a formal and elaborate expression of her son's views upon any subject, given in a haughty and almost dictatorial tone, such as he was using, would have filled his mother with astonishment and pain. She was almost curiously interested in herself on discovering that she had passed that stage, and was occupying her mind for the moment with quite a different matter.

Why had Irene chosen just this line of attack? What did she hope to accomplish by such a singularly distorted representation of their talk together? It must have been sadly distorted to have moved Erskine to an exhibition of annoyance such as he had never before shown to her. Yet had he been present at the interview, his mother felt confident that it would not have disturbed him.

She went swiftly over the talk, in memory, while Erskine waited, and fingered the books and magazines on her table with the air of a nervous man who wanted to appear at ease. It had been a brief conversation, not significant at least to an observer, in any way. Irene had been looking over the mail, and had exclaimed at an invitation.

"The Wheelers are giving another card party; what indefatigable entertainers they are! it isn't a month since their last one. This time it is a very select few, in Mrs. Harry Wheeler's rooms. That is what Erskine and I must do, since you won't allow cards in the parlors. Have you really such queer notions, mother, as Erskine pretends?"

Mrs. Burnham remembered just how carefully she had watched her words, in reply.

"I don't play cards, Irene, if that is what you mean."

"Oh, I mean a great deal more than that. Erskine says you won't allow such wicked things in your part of the house. Is that so?"

"We have never had them in the house since Judge Burnham changed his views with regard to them."

"Oh, did he change? how curious, for a lawyer, too! I don't believe Erskine will get notional as he grows older. He isn't one of that kind." Whereupon the older woman had turned resolutely away, resolved to speak no more words on the subject unless they were spoken in Erskine's presence. It was this conversation, reported, that had brought her son to her in his new and lofty mood of guardian of his wife's liberties! Just as he tossed down the magazine with which he had been playing, with the air of one who meant to wait no longer, his mother spoke with gentle dignity.

"Erskine, of course your rooms are your own, to do with as you will. I made no restrictions and hinted at none. On my desk under the paper-weight is the quotation you wished looked up, and also the statistics about which you asked." Then she turned and passed out, to the hall.

All this was on a midsummer morning nearly three months removed from that moonlighted evening on which this mother had renewed her solemn pledge to be to her son and her son's wife all that they would let her be. In the face of steady resistance she had been fairly true to the pledge. It had now become quite plain to her that it was not chance, nor mere heedlessness, that was working against her, but that Mrs. Erskine Burnham meant to resist her, meant to look upon her as a force in her way, to be got rid of if possible; if not by persuading her son to leave her, then, perhaps by making her so uncomfortable that she would leave him. The plan was not succeeding. Ruth Erskine Burnham had lived through too many trying experiences before this time to be easily routed. She was in the home to which her husband had brought her as a bride, and she meant that nothing but a stern sense of duty should ever separate her from it.

Yet Mrs. Erskine Burnham, if she had but known it, had accomplished much. The mother no longer turned with a sickening pain from the thought of Erskine having other home than hers. There were times when she could almost have joined his wife in pleading for that "cunning little cottage." There were days wherein she told herself breathlessly and very secretly, that for Erskine to come home to her for a single half-hour, alone, would compensate for days of absence.

But if she had changed her point of view, so had Irene. His wife talked to him no more of a home by themselves. She was growing fond of the many-roomed, rambling old house whose utter abandonment to luxurious comfort was the talk and the pride of the neighborhood; and was the result of years of careful study on the part of a cultured woman accustomed to luxuries.

The new Mrs. Burnham developed an interest in the carefully-trained servants who had been a part of the establishment for so many years that they said "our" and "ours" in speaking of its belongings. She came to realize, at least in a measure, that servants like these were hard to secure, and harder to keep. She began also to like the comfort of proprietorship, without the accompanying sense of responsibility. The machinery of this house could move on steadily without break or jar, and without an hour of care or thought bestowed by her; yet her slightest order was obeyed promptly and skilfully.

Her orders were growing more and more frequent, and it was becoming increasingly apparent to those who had eyes to see that "young Mrs. Burnham," as some of them called her, was assuming the reins and being recognized as the head of the house.

Ellen, the maid who had been with Mrs. Burnham since Erskine's boyhood, and who was a rebel against other authority than hers, had openly rebelled, one day, and with blazing eyes that yet softened when the tears came, assured Ruth that she could not have two mistresses, especially when the one who wasn't mistress at all took pains to contradict the orders of the other; and if she had got to be ordered about all the time by Mrs. Erskine, the sooner she went, the better.

"Very well, Ellen," Mrs. Burnham had said, holding her tones to cold dignity. "I shall be sorry to part with you, but it is quite certain that so long as you remain in the house you must obey Mrs. Erskine Burnham's slightest wish. If you cannot do this, of course we must separate."

So Ellen went. In a perfect storm of tears and sobs and regrets, it is true; but she went. This arrangement pleased just one person. Erskine openly complained that her successor was not and never would be a circumstance to Ellen, and made his mother confess that she missed Ellen sorely, and asked her why, after being faithfully served for twenty years, she could not have borne with a few peculiarities. His mother was thankful that he did not insist upon knowing just what form her peculiarities took, and his wife's eyes sparkled. She had recognized Ellen from the first as an enemy, and had meant to be rid of her.

In short, Mrs. Erskine Burnham had settled down. She told her special friends with a cheerful sigh that she had sacrificed herself to her husband's mother, who was growing old and ought not to be burdened with the care of a house. So, much as they would have enjoyed a home to themselves, they had determined to stay where they were.

So steady and skilful were this General's movements toward supremacy that Ruth herself scarcely realized the fact that when she gave an order in these days, she did it hesitatingly, often adding as an afterthought:—

"Let that be the arrangement, unless Mrs. Erskine Burnham has other plans; if she has, remember, I am not at all particular." And she was never surprised any more by the discovery that there was a totally different arrangement. It was therefore in exceeding bad taste for Erskine Burnham to present himself to his mother in lofty mood and threaten her with a separate home for himself and wife. One of his mother's chief concerns at this time was to shield him from the knowledge that she sometimes prayed for solitude as the safest way out of the thickening clouds. That he did not realize any of this can only be attributed to the condition of which his wife often accused him; namely, that he was "as blind as a bat."

The proposed card-party at the Wheelers' came off in due time, both Irene and Erskine being among the guests. Within the month, Irene gave what the next morning's social column called "an exclusive and charming affair" of the same kind in her own rooms. It is true that she had schemed for a different result from this. She had meant to give a card party on a larger scale. Her careful rendering to her husband of the talk about restrictions had been intended to call from him the declaration that the parlors were as much theirs as his mother's, and that if she chose to play cards in them, no one should disturb her. She miscalculated. Instead of this, his deliverance was more emphatic than ever before.

"Remember, Irene, that my mother's sense of the fitness of things must never be infringed upon in any way that can disturb her. Our rooms are our castle and we will do with them as we choose; but no cards downstairs, remember, or anything else that will disturb her—"

"Prejudices!" his wife had interrupted in a manner that she had intended should be playful; but he had spoken quickly and with dignity.

"Very well, prejudices if you will. I was going to say traditions; but if you prefer the other word, it doesn't matter. Whatever they are, they are to be respected."

So Irene, having learned some time before this that such deliverances on the part of her husband were to be respected, took care to keep within the limits of their own rooms. But she took a little private revenge upon her mother-in-law, given in that especially trying would-be playful tone of hers.

"I am sorry that your prejudices—oh, no, pardon me, I mean your traditions—will not allow you to meet our guests this evening; but I suppose that would be wicked, too? Pray how is your absence to be accounted for? Must I trump up an attack of mumps, or dumps, or what?"

As for Erskine, he remained happily unconscious of all these small stings. He was much engrossed in business cares, and left home early and returned late, so that in reality he knew little of what took place during his absence. That all was not quite as he had hoped between his wife and his mother he could not help seeing, but he told himself that he must not be unreasonable; that two people as differently reared as they had been must have time to assimilate; probably they were doing very well, and it was he who was struggling for the impossible. So he straightway put aside and forgot the words of dignified reproach that he had addressed to his mother, and she became "mommie" again, and always his second kiss of greeting was for her. And the mother during these days thanked God that she was able to hide her disappointment and her pain, and meet him always with a smile.