Margaret was thinking how she could account for it, when Mrs. Rushmore went on.
'I'll have a specialist out this afternoon to look at you,' she said. 'You're not sane. I wonder who the best man is.'
The last sentence was spoken in an undertone of reflection.
'Nonsense!' exclaimed Margaret emphatically, and adding to the emphasis by taking off her hat and throwing her head back, shaking it a little as if she wished her hair were down.
Mrs. Rushmore turned upon her with the moral dignity of five generations of Puritan ancestors.
'Do you mean to say that after all I've done to get you this money, you are going to give me up to be an actress?' she demanded with scorn. 'That you're going to give up your best friends, and your position as a lady, and the chance of making a respectable marriage, not to mention your immortal soul, just for the pleasure of showing yourself every night half-dressed to every commercial traveller in Europe? It's disgraceful. I don't care what you say. You're insane. You shan't do it!'
At this view of the case Margaret's forehead flushed a little.
'You talk as if I were going to be a music-hall singer,' she said.
'That's where you'll end!' retorted Mrs. Rushmore, without the slightest regard for facts. 'That's where they all end! There, or in the divorce courts—or both! It's the same thing!' she concluded triumphantly.
'I never heard a divorce court compared to a music-hall,' observed Margaret.