I lapsed into gloomy silence. I had not liked the way Edna had been acting about her parents and mine ever since we came to Brooklyn. But I had been busy, and was averse to meddling.
“I gave Margot for the benefit of the girls a genealogy I’ve gotten up,” she went on. “You know all genealogies are more or less faked, and I’ve no doubt hers is every bit as genuine as those of half the girls over there. I fixed ours so that it would take a lot of inquiry to expose it. And Margot got into the fraternity.”
“Are the hand-made underclothes fake too?” said I.
“Oh, no. They had to be genuine. I’ve never let Margot wear any other kind since I learned about those things. There’s nothing that gives a child such a sense of ladylikeness and superiority as to feel she’s dressed right from the skin out.”
“Well, school’s a different sort of a place from what it was in our day,” said I. The picture my wife had drawn amused me, but I somehow did not exactly like it. My mind was too little interested in the direction of the things that absorbed Edna for me to be able to put into any sort of shape the thoughts vaguely moving about in the shadows. “I’ll bet,” I went on, “poor Margot doesn’t have as good a time as we had.”
“She’d hate that kind of a time,” said Edna.
I laughed and laid my hand in her lap. Her hand stole into it. I watched her lovely face—the sweet, dreamy expression. “What are you thinking?” said I softly, hopeful of romance—what I call romance.
“I was thinking how low and awful we used to be,” replied she, “and how splendidly we are getting away from it.”
I laughed, for I was used to cold water on my romance. “All the same,” insisted I, “Margot would envy us if she knew.”
“She’d hate it,” Edna repeated. “She’s going to be an improvement on us.”