"Something like that," admitted Mr. Duval.
"That's a pity," said Jeanne. "I like those children. They're sweet when they're clean. And Michael's almost always good to the others."
"Perhaps it wouldn't be right," said her father, "to make Mollie's children better than she is. They might despise her and be unkind to her. It is best, I fear, to leave things as they are."
"Don't you love those other children?" queried Jeanne.
"You are asking a great many questions," returned her father. "It is my turn now. Suppose you tell me through what states the Mississippi River flows?"
Mr. Duval admitted to himself, however, that he did not love those other children as he loved Jeanne. He tried hard, in fact, not to hate them. They were so dreadfully like Mollie; so dirty, so untidy, so common. Dazed from his long illness, half crazed by the death of his beautiful young wife, he had married Mollie Shannon without at all realizing what he was doing. He hadn't wanted a wife. All he thought of was a caretaker for wailing Jeannette, who seemed, to her inexperienced father, a terrifying responsibility.
Mollie, in her younger days, with a capable, scheming mother to skillfully conceal her faults—her indolence, her untidiness, her lack of education—had seemed a fitting person for the task of rearing Jeanne. Bolstered by her mother, Mollie looked not only capable, but even rather pleasing with the soothed and contented baby cuddled in her soft arms. At the moment, the arrangement had seemed fortunate for both the Duvals and the Shannons.
Duval, however, was not really so prosperous as his appearance led the Shannons to believe. He had arrived in Bancroft with very little money. Time had proved to his grasping mother-in-law that he was not and never would be a very great success as a money-maker. Some persons aren't, you know. As soon as Mrs. Shannon had fully grasped this disappointing fact, she suffered a surprising relapse. She began to show her true colors—her vile temper, her lack of breeding, her innate coarseness. Her true colors, in fact, were such displeasing ones that Léon Duval was not surprised to learn that Mollie's only brother, a lively and rather reckless lad, by all accounts, had run away from home at the age of fourteen—and was perhaps still running, since he had given no proof of having paused long enough to write. When his absence had stretched into years, Mrs. Shannon became convinced that John was dead; but Mollie was not so sure. The runaway had had much to forgive, and the process, with resentful John, would be slow.
Of course, without her mother's aid, easy-going Mollie resumed her former slovenly habits, neglected her hair, her dress, and her finger nails. Most of her rather faint claim to beauty departed with her neatness.
After a time, when his strength had fully returned and his mental powers with it, Duval realized that he had made a very dreadful mistake in marrying Mollie; but there seemed to be nothing that he could do about it. After all, the only thing in life that he had ever really cared for was buried in Elizabeth Huntington's grave.