“What are he and his family doing to 'your child?'”
Mrs. Adams came out with it. “That snippy little Henrietta Lamb has always snubbed Alice every time she's ever had the chance. She's followed the lead of the other girls; they've always all of 'em been jealous of Alice because she dared to try and be happy, and because she's showier and better-looking than they are, even though you do give her only about thirty-five cents a year to do it on! They've all done everything on earth they could to drive the young men away from her and belittle her to 'em; and this mean little Henrietta Lamb's been the worst of the whole crowd to Alice, every time she could see a chance.”
“What for?” Adams asked, incredulously. “Why should she or anybody else pick on Alice?”
“'Why?' 'What for?'” his wife repeated with a greater vehemence. “Do YOU ask me such a thing as that? Do you really want to know?”
“Yes; I'd want to know—I would if I believed it.”
“Then I'll tell you,” she said in a cold fury. “It's on account of you, Virgil, and nothing else in the world.”
He hooted at her. “Oh, yes! These girls don't like ME, so they pick on Alice.”
“Quit your palavering and evading,” she said. “A crowd of girls like that, when they get a pretty girl like Alice among them, they act just like wild beasts. They'll tear her to pieces, or else they'll chase her and run her out, because they know if she had half a chance she'd outshine 'em. They can't do that to a girl like Mildred Palmer because she's got money and family to back her. Now you listen to me, Virgil Adams: the way the world is now, money IS family. Alice would have just as much 'family' as any of 'em every single bit—if you hadn't fallen behind in the race.”
“How did I——”
“Yes, you did!” she cried. “Twenty-five years ago when we were starting and this town was smaller, you and I could have gone with any of 'em if we'd tried hard enough. Look at the people we knew then that do hold their heads up alongside of anybody in this town! WHY can they? Because the men of those families made money and gave their children everything that makes life worth living! Why can't we hold our heads up? Because those men passed you in the race. They went up the ladder, and you—you're still a clerk down at that old hole!”