“Yes, I know she thinks she has,” returned the child.
Again her response surprised her companion.
“I'll take you as you are, Jewel,” she said. “I'm glad you're not grown up. You're fresher from the workshop.”
CHAPTER XXI
AN EFFORT FOR TRUTH
When Eloise spoke in the ravine of talking with her grandfather, it was because for a few days she had been trying to make up her mind to an interview with him. A fortnight ago she would have felt this to be impossible; but subtle changes had been going on in herself, and, she thought, in him. If her mother would undertake the interview now and take that stand with Mr. Evringham which Eloise felt that self-respect demanded, the girl would gladly escape it; but there was no prospect of such a thing. Mrs. Evringham was only too glad to benefit by her father-in-law's modified mood, to glide along the surface of things and wait—Eloise knew it, knew it every day, in moments when her cheeks flushed hot—for Dr. Ballard to throw the handkerchief.
The girl wished to talk with Mr. Evringham without her mother's knowledge, and the prospect was a dreaded ordeal. She felt that they had won his contempt, and she feared the loss of her own self-control when she should come to touch upon the sore spots.
“What would you do, Jewel,” she asked the next morning, after they had read the lesson; “what would you do if you were afraid of somebody?”
“I wouldn't be,” returned the child quickly.