and pearly, her hands were white and plump and fine, her voice had the refined and throaty burble that is familiar in the majestic American female of the upper crust, and she dimpled beautifully when she smiled.
It was rather uncomfortably evident at once that there was a strong, if suppressed, hostility between Mrs. Joel and her step-daughter, Joel’s mother.
The struggle between the two was for the possession of something that neither of them any longer had—youth. Both were obviously enamoured of youth—of the freshness of youth, the warmth, the charm, the grace, the vitality of youth. Both hated the idea of growing old: both bitterly and desperately refused to admit the possibility of growing old. Mrs. Joel was able to cast over her soul a spell of hypnotic deception, and by absurdly flaunting around the graces, airs and manners of a coquette, to convince herself that she was young and beautiful, able to enslave every man she met under the domination of her captivating charm.
And Mrs. Pierce felt bitterly that the older woman had had her day, that she should be willing to admit her years, gracefully submit, and take a back seat. This ugly rivalry was now apparent in almost everything they said, and gave everyone at the table a feeling of tension, embarrassment and discomfort. Thus, Mrs. Joel, speaking to her step-daughter, and including the whole company, in a reference to Mrs. Pierce’s strenuous pursuit of youth, her grim devotion to youth’s figure and its vigorous gymnastics, now remarked in a tone of sugared venom, a malicious gaiety of fine surprise:
“But really, I do, I think it’s the most astonishing thing to see a woman of your age take part in all these sports and games that only the young people of my generation played…. After all, if you were twenty—the age of Joel or this young man—I could understand it better—but at your age, my dear,”—she drew a fine breath of astonishment, “—really, I marvel that you don’t collapse.”
“Do you?” said Mrs. Pierce, smiling her glacial and inflexible smile, and in a tone of cold, impassive irony—“I confess, Mother, I see nothing at all to marvel at…. Please set your mind at rest—I assure you I’m not in the slightest danger of collapse…. I can do everything,” she went on grandly, “that I could do at twenty—and I can do it better now, with less fatigue and greater skill…. I can hold my own with any of these young people around here, no matter what it is—whether swimming, golfing, playing
