“I don’t want you to,” she said. “I don’t want any one to. Go away. Let me alone. Let me do what I want to.”
Wint said: “You mustn’t think this is too desperately hopeless, Hetty. I’m going to do anything I can; and mother will take care of you.”
She lifted her head at that and looked at him and laughed in a hard, disillusioned way. “A lot you know about women, Wint,” she said.
“I know that you think things are darker than they are,” he assured her. “You’ll see. We’ll manage. Mother and I.”
“Your mother’ll order me out of the house, minute she knows,” said Hetty unemotionally.
Wint protested. “No; you don’t know her. Mother couldn’t hurt any one. You’ll see. She’ll do everything.”
Hetty got up and went to work on the dishes like an automaton. She had to busy herself with something, or she would have screamed. She was trembling, hysterically astir. Wint watched her for a little; then he said:
“You’re going to let us help you.”
“All the help I’ll get will be a kick,” she said. “Your mother won’t want the like of me in her house.”
“You don’t know her,” he insisted. “Mother’s fine, underneath. She’s always doing things for people. You’ll see.”