“Not if you were in love?”
“Poor mamma!” Muriel said compassionately. “What has love to do with marrying? I expect to retain my freedom; I don’t propose to enter upon a period of child-rearing——”
“Oh, good gracious!” Mrs. Eliot cried. “What a way to talk!”
“But if I did,” Muriel continued, with some sharpness, “I should never select Renfrew Mears to be my assistant in the task. And as for what you call ‘love,’ it seems to me a rather unhealthy form of excitement that I’m not subject to, fortunately.”
“You are so queer,” her mother murmured; whereupon Muriel laughed.
No doubt her laughter was a little condescending. “Queer?” she said. “No—only modern. Only frank and wholesome! Thinking people look at life as it really is, nowadays, mamma. I am a child of the new age; but more than that, I am not the slave of my emotions; I am the product of my thinking. Unwholesome excitement and queer fancies have no part in my life, mamma.”
“I hope not,” her mother responded with a little spirit. “I’m not exactly urging anything unwholesome upon you, Muriel. You’re very inconsistent, it seems to me.”
“I!” Muriel said haughtily. “Inconsistent!”
“Why, when I just mention that your father and I’d be glad if you could feel a little kinder toward a good-looking, fine young man that we know all about, you begin talking, and pretty soon it sounds as though we were trying to get you to do something criminal! And then you go on to say you haven’t got any ‘queer fancies!’ Isn’t it a queer fancy to think we’d want you to do anything unhealthy or excited? That’s why I say you’re inconsistent.”
Muriel coloured; her breathing quickened; and her eyes became threateningly bright. “The one thing I won’t be called,” she said, “is ‘inconsistent!’ ”