"Come," she said, "I thought Jim had no faults?"
"Well, he hasn't," Julia laughed. And then, a little confused by her own
fervent tone, she changed the subject, and asked about Ted.
"Why, Ted's happy, and rich, and simply adored by Bob Carleton," Barbara
summarized briefly, in a rather dry voice, "but Mother and Dad never
will get over it, and I suppose Ted herself doesn't like the idea of
that other wife--she lives at The Palace, and she's got a seven-year-old
girl! It's _done_, you know, Julie, and of course Ted's accepted
everywhere; she'll go to the Brownings' this year, and Mrs. Morton has
asked her to receive with her at some sort of dinner reception next
month, you'll meet her everywhere. But I do think it's terribly hard on
Mother and Dad!"
"But how _could_ she, that great big black creature?"
"Oh, she loves him fast enough! It was perfectly legal, of course. I
think Dad was at the wedding, and I think Richie was, but we girls never
knew anything until it was all over. Mother simply announced to us one
night that Ted was married, and that there was to be no open break, but
that she and Dad were just about _sick_! I never saw Mother give way so!
She said--and it's true--that if ever there was a mother who deserved
her children's confidence, and so on! All the newspapers blazed about
it--Ted's picture, Bob's picture--and, as I say, society welcomed her
with open arms.
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