“What did you do it for?” he asked, mildly, for the third time; and Agnes stamped to her feet. When she answered, her voice was harsh and hard and indescribably bitter.
“Because I wanted to get him drunk,” she said. “He’s so funny when he’s that way. That’s why.”
She stared down at him defiantly; and Amos saw hard lines form about her mouth. Before he could speak, she was gone indoors.
Amos sat there for a long while, after that, thinking.... His thoughts ran back; he remembered Agnes as a baby, as a schoolgirl. She was a young woman, now.
He thought to himself, a curiously helpless feeling oppressing him: “I wish her mother hadn’t’ve died.”
CHAPTER IX
A WORD FROM JOAN
WINT found himself unable to put Hetty out of his mind, next day. He had overslept, was late for breakfast, and ate it alone with Hetty serving him. When she came into the dining room, he said:
“Good morning.”
Hetty nodded, without answering. And he asked cheerfully: “Well, how’s the world this morning?”
She said the world was all right; and she went out into the kitchen again before he could ask her anything more. Wint, over his toast and coffee, wondered. He was beginning to have some suspicion as to what was wrong with Hetty. But—he could not believe it. It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be.