"And you will be, Winnie." Mrs. Farley set the tray shakily on the tossed bed clothes.
"You, too, Mamma Farley, dear. I want you to be happy, too." Winnie held out a small inexorable hand, and Mrs. Farley, unable to behave otherwise, took it. Winnie squeezed her mother-in-law's fingers. "I know you haven't always been happy, Mamma, dear." Winnie's dim eyes were lustful with pity. Mrs. Farley was frightened. Her hand trembled and she tried to pull back and resist the invitation of sympathy. "Papa Farley ought to love you more than anybody in the world!" Winnie asserted, passionately tender.
Mrs. Farley was shaken. Who's been talking to Winnie? She pressed her lips quiveringly shut. Her eyeglasses twinkled and shuddered with her heaving breast. Winnie felt herself strong with a love that nothing could resist. Exultant, she gloated inwardly over the knotted hand that trembled in her grasp.
"Your parents—I don't know—we won't talk about old people's troubles, Winnie." Mrs. Farley was recovering herself. Perhaps Winnie didn't mean that. "I suppose Papa Farley loves me in his way just as you love me in yours."
Winnie would not let her go. "You stand up for him. You're so good to him," she insisted with a kind of worshiping commiseration.
"Why shouldn't I be?" Mrs. Farley dared, trying to smile while she frowned, her evasive eyes shifting a little.
"Because he don't deserve it! Because he did what he did. Oh, Mamma Farley, I know you don't want me to talk about it, but I can't help it. I love you so. You're so wonderful to me!" Winnie's eyes shone, mercilessly sweet, into the hunted eyes of the elder woman.
"I don't know what you mean, Winnie."
They looked at each other. Mamma Farley could not look. She picked at the sheet.
"You dear! You dear!" Winnie hugged her. She was crying.