“Don’t be absurd!” laughed I. “That simply could not be. She’s lovely, sweet, attractive in every way. Any girls anywhere would be proud to have her as a friend.”
“How can you be so ignorant of the world!” cried Edna in a frenzy of exasperation. “Oh, you’ll drive me mad with your stupidity! Can’t you realize how low fashionable people are. The girls who were her friends so long as they were all mere children are now taking a positive delight in snubbing her, because she’s so pretty and will be an heiress. It gives them a sense of power to treat her as an inferior, to make her suffer.”
I flung away the cigar and sat up in the chair. “How long has this been going on?” I demanded.
“Nearly a year,” replied my wife. “It began as soon as she lost her childishness and developed toward a woman. I’m glad I’ve roused you at last. So long as she was a mere baby they liked her—invited her to their children’s parties—came to hers. But now they’re dropping her. Oh, it’s maddening! They are so sweet and smooth, the vile little daughters of vile mothers!”
“Incredible!” said I. “Surely not those sweet, well-mannered girls I’ve seen here at her parties? They couldn’t do that sort of thing. Why, what do those babies know about social position and such nonsense?”
“What do they know? What don’t they know?” cried Edna, trembling with rage at her humiliation and at my incredulity. “You are an innocent! There ought to be a new proverb—innocent as a married man. Why, nowadays the children begin their social training in the cradle. They soon learn to know a nurse or a butler from a lady or a gentleman before they learn to walk. They hear the servants talk. They hear their parents talk. Except innocent you everyone nowadays thinks and talks about these things.”
“But Margot—our Margot—she doesn’t know!” I said with conviction.
Edna laughed harshly. “Know? What kind of mother do you think I am? Of course she knows. Haven’t I been teaching her ever since she began to talk? Why do you suppose I’ve always called her the little duchess?”
“She suggests a superior little person,” said I, groping vaguely.
“She suggests a superior person because I gave her that name and brought her up to look and act and feel the part. She expects to be a real duchess some day—” Edna reared proudly, and her voice rang out confidently as she added—“and she shall be!”