"Oh, we used to argue that old thing over with father when we were ten. You can't tell. You've got to define the term brave. I was just abject. . . . I could harangue the whole crowd when I got them together. But speak to one man in cold blood I couldn't. . . . Of course I did speak to a fat golfing idiot with bulging eyes, to get him to save Gertie. But that was different."
Mrs. Duchemin moved both the girl's hands up and down in her own.
"As you know, Valentine," she said, "I'm an old-fashioned woman. I believe that woman's true place is at her husband's side. At the same time . . ."
Miss Wannop moved away.
"Now, don't, Edie, don't!" she said. "If you believe that, you're an anti. Don't run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. It's your defect really. . . . I tell you I'm not a heroine. I dread prison: I hate rows. I'm thankful to goodness that it's my duty to stop and housemaid-typewrite for mother, so that I can't really do things. . . . Look at that miserable, adenoidy little, Gertie, hiding upstairs in our garret. She was crying all last night—but that's just nerves. Yet she's been in prison five times, stomach-pumped and all. Not a moment of funk about her! . . . But as for me, a girl as hard as a rock that prison wouldn't touch. . . . Why, I'm all of a jump now. That's why I'm talking nonsense like a pert schoolgirl. I just dread that every sound may be the police coming for me."
Mrs. Duchemin stroked the girl's fair hair and tucked a loose strand behind her ear.
"I wish you'd let me show you how to do your hair," she said. "The right man might come along at any moment."
"Oh, the right man!" Miss Wannop said. "Thanks for tactfully changing the subject. The right man for me, when he comes along, will be a married man. That's the Wannop luck!"
Mrs. Duchemin said, with deep concern:
"Don't talk like that. . . . Why should you regard yourself as being less lucky than other people? Surely your mother's done well. She has a position; she makes money. . . ."