"Not—right away," said the girl slowly.
There came a little rush behind her. Effie May had caught up one of her hands, and kissed it....
CHAPTER XXXVI
The girl had a difficult problem before her. She wrestled with it throughout a sleepless night. She felt like Fate, with human destinies in her control.
At one moment her course seemed clear beyond the question of a doubt. It was unthinkable that her father should continue to recognize as his wife—her mother's successor!—a woman who had led an immoral life, who had earned the very money that supported them by living for years as the mistress of another man. Joan's cheeks burned with the thought.
At the next moment, she wondered what her father would do without the woman. She had no illusions left regarding Richard Darcy. He had never in his futile life stood on his own two feet. He was one of the inefficients, who must be cared for. Now, weakened morally and physically by the habit of luxurious living, he was less able than ever to take care of himself. Age was coming upon him rapidly. In the struggle of life, he must go down utterly to defeat—Unless his daughter could help him; and so far his daughter had been unable even to help herself.
The girl wondered, too, her heart sick within her, whether he would consent to give up the luxury he loved when he learned the shame that went with it.... Not that he would be able to forgive the woman! She knew his fixed standards, his pride of race, too well to expect of him any such magnanimity. The vulgarity of Effie May had been quite enough for him to swallow, as it was.
Joan thought that if, knowing his wife's past and utterly despising her, he yet kept her because of material benefits, it would be a shame she personally could not bear. Better, perhaps, that he be not put to the test.
And yet—in her mother's place, a woman of the town! (The girl was not able to make the fine distinctions in vice suggested by her step-mother.)