Mrs. Mitchell wiped the perspiration from her face with the corner of a very soiled apron and kissed her daughter. She was taller and broader than Anne, but she had the same long-lashed, deeply-blue eyes, and her skin had once been even fairer. It was remarkably white and soft yet at the base of her throat, although there were tiny lines about her ears and at the corners of her mouth. Her hair had been dark, however, like Belle's, and now was a fluffy mass of gray curls.
Anne always felt older than her mother and loved her, on the whole, with a passionate, protective tenderness. There were times, however, when Hilda's persistent cheerfulness and muddled thinking annoyed her, and at long intervals Hilda disgusted her. These were the moments of confidence in which her mother, under the pretense of "warning the girls," confided to them, in general terms, "some of the things married women have to put up with." Belle and Anne both knew that these confidences were the result of her relations with the small, gray man, their father. Years ago it had deepened Belle's indifference and Anne's dislike to him.
"What is it now?" Anne took the spoon and tried to beat the lumpy gravy to smoothness. "He's just staring into the grate."
Hilda shrugged. "That oil well, I suppose. I wish to goodness they'd stop discovering gushers and copper and all those things. I thought when the Chinese lottery was put out of business we might get a little ahead."
Anne smashed at the lumps and frowned. "You ought to have put your foot down years ago, that's all there is to it. If you'd made a real row every time instead of just—just spluttering sometimes—he would have had to sit up and behave."
Hilda bridled. "It's one thing to talk and another to do. When you're married yourself, you'll understand. By the time you get 'round to see how you could do it better, it's too late. They've got you saddled with a baby and——"
Feeling a confidence about to descend upon her, Anne snatched the first weapon to hand.
"I've quit the office, mamma."
Hilda's mouth remained open, her eyes held the "if-you-only-understood" look that always accompanied such a confidence.
"You needn't look like that, moms; the world is really rotating just as usual."