“Why ... there’s nothing to be done ... now ... I suppose.” He was blushing furiously. “How did it happen, when will it be?”
“It’s a man she knows, he got hold of her, his name is Stringer. Another two months about. Stringer. Hadn’t you noticed anything? Everybody else has. You are a funny boy, I can’t make you out at all, Johnny, I can’t make you out. Stringer his name is, but I’ll make him pay dearly for it, and that’s what I want you—to talk to you about. Of course he denies of everything, they always do.”
Mrs. Flynn sighed at this disgusting perfidy, brightening however when her son began to discuss the problem. But she talked so long and he got so sleepy at last that he was very glad when she went to bed again. Secretly she was both delighted and disappointed at his easy acceptance of her dreadful revelation; fearing a terrible outburst of anger she had kept the knowledge from him for a long time. She was glad to escape that, it is true, but she rather hungered for some flashing reprobation of this unknown beast, this Stringer. She swore she would bring him to book, but she felt old and lonely, and Johnny was a strange son, not very virile. The mother had told Pomona terrifying prophetic tales of what Johnny would do, what he would be certain to do; he would, for instance, murder that Stringer and drive Pomony into the street; of course he would. Yet here he was, quite calm about it, as if he almost liked it. Well, she had told him, she could do no more, she would leave it to him.
In the morning Johnny greeted his sister with tender affection and at evening, having sent her to bed, he and his mother resumed their discussion.
“Do you know, mother,” he said, “she is quite handsome, I never noticed it before.”
Mrs. Flynn regarded him with desperation and then informed him that his sister was an ugly disgusting little trollop who ought to be birched.
“No, no, you are wrong, mother, it’s bad, but it’s all right.”
“You think you know more about such things than your own mother, I suppose.” Mrs. Flynn sniffed and glared.
He said it to her gently: “Yes.”
She produced a packet of notepaper and envelopes “The Monster Packet for a Penny,” all complete with a wisp of pink blotting paper and a penholder without a nib, which she had bought at the Chandler’s on her way home that evening, along with some sago and some hair oil for Johnny whose stiff unruly hair provoked such spasms of rage in her bosom that she declared that she was “sick to death of it.” On the supper table lay also a platter, a loaf, a basin of mustard pickle, and a plate with round lengths of cheese shaped like small candles.