“For heaven’s sake, don’t get so melodramatic. The thing’s past. Why not forget it?”
“Can you forget it? You are ashamed to let the man you love know about it, for fear he might not want to marry you—not want to marry you, on account of me.”
“You take the thing too seriously, Edith. You never told me much about your affair with Billy West, and I never asked you. Every family has a skeleton in its closet. Most of them are lucky if they haven’t several, but they don’t make a practice of parading them before the public. What on earth do you want to talk about this thing for? It can’t do any good now.”
“Because I’m sick of living this lie. I’ve a great mind to tell Donald everything.”
“You are getting just plain, ordinary dippy, Edith. You ought to take something for it. Do you know what he would do?”
“He couldn’t do anything that would make matters worse than they are.”
“He couldn’t? You think he couldn’t? Well, I’ll tell you what he would do. He’d make you give up every cent of this money so quick it would make your hair stand on end.”
“Alice! What do you mean?” Mrs. Rogers was horror-struck. This phase of the matter had evidently not occurred to her.
“I should think it was plain enough. He couldn’t do anything else. If you didn’t do as he wished, he would leave you. He might do it, anyway. He isn’t the sort of a man who would stand for any foolishness, kind as he is. You know that. You’d lose either your husband or your money. Then where would you be?”