“Get me a Bible, then,” replied Freda. “I suppose the idea of me working for a Courtney is about the same to you, Mother, as a long drink of twenty percent. Paris Green.”
“Why, it’s so absurd!” mused Mrs. MacDowell, “so utterly absurd!”
“You mean humiliating, don’t you?” asked Freda, tapping thoughtfully now with her toes. “There used to be a time when social position depended on brains, ability, blood, and such personal things. That’s so long ago that Herodotus would have to scratch his dome to remember it. Right now, it depends on how one’s daughter spends her time. If I could float around in a new Packard roadster with a Pekinese pup sitting on a blue cushion beside me, why your dear, old prestige would be as safe as the Bank of England. But I’ve got imbued, Mother, with the thoroughly low-brow idea that a woman of my age—of any age for that matter—is better when she’s at work.”
“And I’m quite sure,” said Mrs. MacDowell, with considerable emphasis, “that your reason for wishing to stay in Lockwood is merely to be near our young turnip-digger.”
Freda’s face flushed, but she disregarded the reference. “I shouldn’t be at all surprised, Mother,” she replied with a growing warmth, “if that had something to do with it. But there is also another reason. I’ve just simply ached, these last six years, to enjoy a little home life, undisturbed, and you’ve given me no chance. I come home and all the time either you are away off somewhere, or else so surrounded by a bunch of darned fools that I never see you.”
“That’s quite enough!” commanded Mrs. MacDowell. “Surely you’re growing irresponsible.”
Freda’s face was crimson and her eyes flashing with a dangerous light. She tried to swallow something that stuck in her throat. Her mother knew these symptoms well enough. They meant rage. They meant that Freda must be left alone for the balance of the evening.
Several minutes after Mrs. MacDowell had gone her husband sauntered into the kitchen, to find his daughter sitting in the same position, but with her face in her hands.
“You women folk astonish me,” he laughed. “There’s nothing in it, Freda; nothing in it. Your mother is a Smith, remember. Enough said. She’s different. There’s nothing in it at all, by gad!”