"I don’t want her to do nothing for me. I want her to let me alone. Listen here—you wouldn’t stand up for her if you knew the way she talks about you. I had the two of them out the other day, and they were fighting about you all the time. She said you was no good, and she guessed you’d stole things off her; but Mrs. G., she says no, you’re all right. Then she says you’d make trouble in the house, and Mrs. G. says, ‘Well, ain’t there enough trouble there anyway? What do we care if we get a little more? I want her back,’ she says. ‘All right,’ says the old lady, ‘have her, if you want her, but don’t kick if you find your hus——’”
Angelica had grown scarlet.
"My Gawd, what a lot you talk!" she said. "You better be starting home."
He eyed her with resentment.
"I’ll go!" he said. "Don’t you worry!"
After Courtland had gone, Mrs. Kennedy attempted to reprove her daughter for her bad manners, but Angelica insisted autocratically that she must go to bed at once.
"You shouldn’t get up at all," she told her mother.
"The doctor said it wouldn’t hurt me—just around the flat."
"Not at night! You’d ought to know better. You ought to be asleep by this time. Now, listen here, mommer!" she added firmly, as she saw signs of rebellion. "If you don’t do what I say, I’m not going to stay and take care of you. The doctor said rest. Well, this isn’t rest. You got to go to bed this instant!"
So did she rid herself of the necessity for talking, for listening, for recognizing the external world. She was irritable at the very least disturbance; her joy had gone, and left a bitter impatience. Five days before she could go back to that enchanted house where Vincent lived, to be again under the same roof, sitting at the same table! Five days lost out of life, out of her best years!