"You will apologize for that language to me when I come back," I said icily. "I do not know whether I shall go to bid Jack good-by or not. I have no idea what I shall do, save that I must get away from here for a little while. But if you have any sense of the ordinary decencies of life you will lower your voice. I do not suppose you care to have either your mother or Katie overhear this edifying conversation."
"Much you care about what my mother thinks," Dicky rejoined, and this time his voice was querulous, but decidedly lower. "Fine courteous treatment you're giving her, leaving her like this when she has been in the house but a couple of hours."
"Your mother has shown such eagerness for my society that no doubt she will be heartbroken if she awakens and finds that I am not here."
"That's right, slam my mother. Why didn't you say in the first place you couldn't bear to have her in the same house with you?"
"Dicky, you are most unjust," I began hotly, and then stopped horror-stricken.
"What is the matter, my son?" The incisive voice of my mother-in-law sounded from the door of her room.
"Go back to bed, mother," Dicky said hastily. "I'm awfully sorry we disturbed you."
"Disturbing me doesn't matter," she said decidedly, "but what you were saying does. I heard you mention me, and I naturally wish to know if I am the subject of this very remarkable conversation."
I know now where Dicky gets the sneering tone which sets me wild when he directs it against me. His mother's inflection is exactly like her son's. The contemptuous glance with which she swept me nerved me to speak to her in a manner which I had never dreamed I would use toward Dicky's mother.
"Mrs. Graham," I said, raising my head and returning her stare with a look equally cold and steady, "my husband"—I emphasized the words slightly—"and I are discussing something which cannot possibly concern you. You were not the subject of conversation, and your name was brought in by accident. I hope you will be good enough to allow us to finish our discussion."