"Hello, Dad. Where's mother?" He was reading the evening paper under the amber-silk light of the living room. Charley kissed the top of his head, patted his shoulder once, and went back to her room. A little subdued these days was Charley—for Charley. "Any mail? I wonder what's the matter with Lotta. I haven't had a letter in a month."
Her bedroom was down the long hall, halfway between the living room and dining room. Her mother was already there, waiting. "Any mail?... How pretty you look, mother! Your cheeks are all pink." But her eyes went past her mother to the little sheaf of envelopes that lay on her dressing table. She went toward them, quickly. But her mother stopped her.
"Listen, Charley. Ben Gartz is coming to dinner to-night." Charley's eyebrows went up ever so slightly. She said nothing. "Charley, Ben Gartz could do a great deal for your father—and for all of us—if he wanted to."
"Doesn't he want to?"
"Well, after all, why should he? It isn't as if we were related—or as if he were one of the family."
"Lottie, you mean?" She knew what her mother meant. And yet she wanted to give her a chance—a chance to save herself from this final infamy.
"N-n-no." Her voice had the rising inflection. "I don't think he cares about Lottie any more."
"Then that snatches him definitely out of the family clutches, doesn't it? Unless Aunt Charlotte——"
"Don't be funny, Charley. He's a man to be respected. He's good-looking, not old; more than well-to-do—rich, really."
Charley's eyes were cold and hard. And they were no longer mother and daughter, but two women, battle-locked. "M-m-m.... A little old and fat though, don't you think, for most purposes? And just a wee bit common? H'm?"