The words must have gone to Hattie's knees, because, dropping a spat of mulatto cold cream on the linoleum, she sat down weakly on the kitchen chair that she had painted blue and white to match the china cereal set on the shelf above it.
"Marcy!"
"And she likes me better than any girl in school, momie, and I'm to be her chum from to-day on, and not another girl in school is invited except Edwina Nelson, because her father's on nearly all the same boards of directors with Mr. Grosbeck, and—"
"Marcia! Marcia! and you came home from school just as if nothing had happened! Child, sometimes I think you're made of ice."
"Why, I'm glad, momie."
But that's what there were, little ice glints of congealed satisfaction in Marcia's eyes.
"Glad," said Hattie, the word full of tears. "Why, honey, you don't realize it, but this is the beginning! This is the meaning of my struggle to get you into Miss Harperly's school. It wasn't easy. I've never told you the—strings I had to pull. Conservative people, you see. That's what the Grosbecks are, too. Home people. The kind who can afford to wear dowdy hats and who have lived in the same house for thirty years."
"Nome's mother was born in the house they live in."
"Substantial people, who half-sole their shoes and endow colleges. Taxpayers. Policyholders. Church members. Oh, Marcia, those are the safe people!"
"There's a Grosbeck memorial window in the Rock Church."