Mrs. Bent stood upright.
"I've worked for you and slaved for you," said she thickly. With her flushed face and her eagerness she looked as she had looked twenty years before. With her prettiness something else returned, a certain vulgarity, long shed away. "You have everything you need, don't you?"
"Why, mother!"
"I've given up enough so that you could have things, I guess, and sewed for you and washed and ironed for you, and—"
"Oh, mother, don't!" cried Eleanor. "I didn't mean to worry you, I only thought I would like to know. It's a sort of a mystery."
"It ain't no mystery to me," said Mrs. Bent. Then she began to cry. "I hear somebody coming. Go in and entertain your fine beau that makes you ashamed of your mother!"
Eleanor stood appalled. This must be finished, talked out.
"Why, mother, I—"
"There is some one on the porch, I tell you!"