Kedzie could
not yet afford to be so forgiving. She flared up.
"Mrs. Cheever! That Zada thing going to call on me? How dare she!"
"Of course not."
"Oh, the other one, then?"
"Yes."
"The abandoned one?"
"That's pretty rough. She's been very kind to you and she wants
to be again."
"Where did you learn so much?"
"We were talking about you."
"Oh, you were, were you? That's nice! And where was all this?"
He indulged in a concessive lie for the sake or the peace. "I met
her in the street and walked along with her."
"Fine! And how did my name come to come up?"
"It naturally would. I was saying that I wished she'd--er--I wished
that you and she might be friends."
"So that you and she could see each other still oftener, I suppose."
"It's rotten of you to say that."
"And it's rottener of you to go talking to another woman about
your wife."
"But it was in the friendliest spirit, and she took it so."
"I see! Her first name is Charity and I'm to be one of her patients.
Well, you can receive her yourself. I don't want any of her old alms!
I won't be here!"
"Oh yes, you will!"
"Oh no, I won't!"
"You can't be as ill-mannered as that!"
"You talk to me of manners! Why, I've seen manners in your gang that
would disgrace a brakeman and a lunch-counter girl on one of dad's
railroads." Her father already had railroads! So many people had
them in the crowd she met that Kedzie was not strong enough to deny
her father one or two.
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