Now Mrs. Whitaker was tall and large and square; she was strong-minded and strong-featured; she was what you would call a "capable woman"—and none but her own inmost soul knew the melting joy that overcame her at being told that she was helpless. She raised her hand to the hand that lay on her shoulder again, and patted it. She bent her head sideways and laid her cheek upon it.
"Now, what's the trouble?" said her husband.
"The trouble ... I can hardly express it," she spoke hesitantly, "either to myself or to you. Anselm!" she turned her eyes to him suddenly, the eyes full of blueness and temper and courage he had fallen in love with in Dublin long ago. "I hate those three miserable women," she said. "I hate them."
"What!" cried her husband, drawing his hand away from hers.
"I fear them, and I hate them!" she repeated.
"What have they done?"
"They have done nothing," said his wife, with drooping head and downcast eyes. "But I cannot help it. I hate and fear them ... for the children's sake."
"What do you mean?" Mr. Whitaker was sitting very straight. The thin soft hair still crowning his brow was ruffled.
"The mystery that surrounds them frightens me," said Mrs. Whitaker. "I don't know where they come from, what they have seen, what they have lived through. I should like to be kind to them, I should like to encourage the children to cheer them and speak to them. But there is something ... something in their eyes that repels me, something that makes me want to draw Eva away from them. I cannot express it. I don't know what it is."
There was a brief silence. Then her husband spoke. "A woman's instinct in these things is right, I suppose. But to me it sounds uncharitable and cruel."