This Claudine was unable to answer. The old lady regarded her severely.
“I only hope,” she went on, “that the time will never come when you’ll look back on these days as the happiest time of your life.... I remember when I was a young married woman—” she sighed. “I can tell you, I hadn’t much time to worry about what to do, with my five children.”
“I wish I had five children,” said Claudine.
The old lady looked at her again.
“Humph!” she said.
§ iv
She was ready now for the euchre, she cast a last glance in the mirror and gathered up her little possessions, handkerchiefs, gloves, cardcase, and muff. A composed and mature figure she looked, in her grey broadcloth dress with a trailing skirt and well-boned bodice, slender, dignified in spite of her smallness. A lady—a young married woman, a finished product. She was supposed to have done with adventure, romance and excitement, she was presumed to have settled down.
She smiled frigidly.
“We’ll see!” she said. “Just wait! They’re all against me—even Lance. But I won’t give in! If I can’t get away, then I’ll change all this! I won’t have a life like this. I won’t! I won’t!”