Above all, Jack must have appreciated both her generous intention and her
relinquishing of it. Yet she had just to test his appreciation.
"Indeed I do accept, Jack. I can't bear to have them disappointed for a
childish fancy, like that of poor mama's, and we have no right to afford it
by any other means. Isn't it strange that any one should care more for a
colored bit of stone than for some high and shining hours in those girls'
gray lives?"
But Jack said: "Oh, I perfectly understand what she felt about it. It was
her mother's ring. She probably remembers seeing it on her mother's hand."
So Imogen had, again, to recognize the edge of the shadow.
They, all of them, Jack, Mary, and her mother, went with her and her girls
to the concert. Jack had taken two boxes in the semicircle that sweeps
round Carnegie Hall, overhanging the level sea of heads below. Rose Packer,
just come to town, was next them, with the friends she was visiting in New
York, two pretty, elaborately dressed girls, frothing with youthful high
spirits, and their mother, an abundant, skilfully-girthed matron. The
Langleys were very fashionable and very wealthy; their houses in America,
England, Italy, their yachts and motorcars, their dances and dinners,
furnished matter for constant and uplifted discourse in the society columns
of the English-speaking press all over the world. Every one of Imogen's
factory girls knew them by name and a stir of whispers and nudges announced
their recognition.
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