“And yet”—she gripped the arms of the rocking-chair, and her eyes shone—“you come here to get me to prevent the only step being taken—”
“No! Only to protest against Hildegarde’s taking it. Good heavens!”—he was losing his self-control—“Hildegarde is—”
“Well and strong, and no such fool as you seem to think.”
He set his square jaw. “A little young for such a—”
“Twenty-six.”
“You forget or don’t know she’s also—attractive.”
“Attractive!” Mrs. Mar repeated with a weight of contemptuous meaning. “Since what you imply is so little a credit to your sex, I may be allowed to say she has shot at a mark with her brothers, and if it’s necessary, she can carry a revolver.”
“Good God! And you’re her mother!”
Mrs. Mar sprang to her feet. “Yes, I’m her mother, and that I didn’t myself suggest her going to get her father to come home, is only that I’m under the spell of the old foolishness about women. The fact is, that we’re much better able to look out for ourselves than men are—yes, stare as much as you like! It’s so. You’re all babies, I tell you, and if the women didn’t look after you, you’d be dead babies!”