“It’s beauty!” Selina said then, almost passionately. Aug Hempel and Julie plainly could make nothing of this remark so she went on, eager, explanatory. “I used to think that if you wanted beauty—if you wanted it hard enough and hopefully enough—it came to you. You just waited, and lived your life as best you could, knowing that beauty might be just around the corner. You just waited, and then it came.”
“Beauty!” exclaimed Julie, weakly. She stared at Selina in the evident belief that this work-worn haggard woman was bemoaning her lack of personal pulchritude.
“Yes. All the worth-while things in life. All mixed up. Rooms in candle-light. Leisure. Colour. Travel. Books. Music. Pictures. People—all kinds of people. Work that you love. And growth—growth and watching people grow. Feeling very strongly about things and then developing that feeling to—to make something fine come of it.” The word self-expression was not in cant use then, and Selina hadn’t it to offer them. They would not have known what she meant if she had. She threw out her hands now in a futile gesture. “That’s what I mean by beauty. I want Dirk to have it.”
Julie blinked and nodded with the wise amiable look of comprehension assumed by one who has understood no single word of what has been said. August Hempel cleared his throat.
“I guess I know what you’re driving at Selina, maybe. About Julie I felt just like that. She should have everything fine. I wanted her to have everything. And she did, too. Cried for the moon she had it.”
“I never did have it Pa, any such thing!”
“For pity’s sake!” pleaded Julie, the literal, “let’s stop talking and do something. My goodness, anybody with a little money can have books and candles and travel around and look at pictures, if that’s all. So let’s _do_ something. Pa, you’ve probably got it all fixed in your mind long ago. It’s time we heard it. Here Selina was one of the most popular girls in Miss Fister’s school, and lots of people thought the prettiest. And now just look at her!”
A flicker of the old flame leaped up in Selina. “Flatterer!” she murmured.
Aug Hempel stood up. “If you think giving your whole life to making the boy happy is going to make him happy you ain’t so smart as I took you for. You go trying to live somebody else’s life for them.”