"I suppose you think that fretting about all my seasons without an offer worth accepting has driven me out of my senses. Sometimes I think so, too." And Margaret lapsed into abstracted, dreamy silence.
"Do you pretend that you—you—care for—this person?" inquired the old lady.
"I can't discuss him with you, Grandmother," replied the girl. "You know you have washed your hands of me."
"I shall never give up," cried the old lady vehemently, "until I rescue you. I'll not permit this disgrace. I'll have him driven out of Washington."
"Yes, you might try that," said Margaret. "I don't want him to stay here. I am sick—sick to death—of all this. I loathe everything I ever liked. It almost seems to me I'd prefer living in a cabin in the back-woods. I've just wakened to what it really means—no love, no friendship, only pretense and show, rivalry in silly extravagance, aimless running to and fro among people that care nothing for one, and that one cares nothing for. If you could see it as I see it you'd understand."
But Madam Bowker had thought all her life in terms of fashion and society. She was not in the least impressed. "Balderdash!" said she with a jab at the floor with the ebony staff. "Don't pose before me. You know very well you're marrying this man because you believe he will amount to a great deal."
Margaret beamed upon her grandmother triumphantly, as if she had stepped into a trap that had been set for her. "And your only reason for being angry," cried she, "is that you don't believe he will."
"I know he won't. He can't. Stillwater has kept him solely because that unspeakable wife of his hopes to foist their dull, ugly eldest girl on him."
"You think a man as shrewd as Stillwater would marry his daughter to a nobody?"
"It's useless for you to argue, Margaret," snapped the old lady. "The man's impossible—for a Severence. I shall stop the engagement."