"Children so necessary—family traditions—"
She bent close to him. "My son is going to be proud to carry on the family traditions, dear."
His face cleared. "Good girl!" There was a little bubbling breath. "I promised Mary—"
But Joan never learned what promise it was that he had made, and doubtless broken, to his Mary.
CHAPTER XLII
Joan herself, like other self-reliant people, sometimes made promises which she was unable to keep. She had made such a one to her father. Despite her best efforts, the fact and manner of his death did manage to upset her, disastrously.
The day came not long afterwards when for hours, years, they seemed to her, Joan was aware of nothing but pain, and of the fact that miserable, terrified Archie must somehow be got out of the way before she lost control of herself. She thought that when she could get enough breath to do it, she would ask him to go down town and bring her some ice-cream or something; but when she did open her lips they emitted, entirely without permission, a queer sound that was somewhere between a yelp and a croak.
"Goodness! This is no way for a gentleman to behave," she said to herself oddly; and must have spoken aloud, for the voice of Ellen Neal responded.
"There, there, my lamb! Yell all you want. You ain't no gentleman, thank goodness! but just a poor little girl who's got a right to holler all she likes. That's one right the men-folks ain't going to deny us and get away with it—not them!"