“Well, will ye jist tell me, then,” said Katy, “how it happened that Eileen’s ma was a sister to that great beef of a man, which same is hard on self-rayspectin’ beef; pork would come nearer.”
“Yes,” said Linda, “I’ll tell you. Eileen’s mother had a big streak of the same coarseness and the same vulgarity in her nature, or she could not have reared Eileen as she did. She probably had been sent to school and had better advantages than the boy through a designing mother of her own. Her first husband must have been a man who greatly refined and educated her. We can’t ever get away from the fact that Daddy believed in her and loved her.”
“Yes,” said Katy, “but he was a fooled man. She wasn’t what we thought she was. Many’s the time I’ve stood injustice about the accounts and household management because I wouldn’t be wakin’ him up to what he was bound to for life.”
“That doesn’t help us,” said Linda. “I must go in and face them.”
She handed her books to Katy, and went into the living room. She concentrated on John Gilman first, and a wee qualm of disgust crept through her soul when she saw that after weeks of suffering he was once more ready to devote himself to Eileen. Linda marveled at the power a woman could hold over a man that would force him to compromise with his intellect, his education and environment. Then she turned her attention to Eileen, and the shock she received was informing. She studied her an instant incredulously, then she went to her and held out her hand.
“How do you do?” she said as cordially as was possible to her. “This is unexpected.”
Her mind was working rapidly, yet she could not recall ever having seen a woman quite so beautiful as Eileen. She was very certain that the colour on her cheeks was ebbing and rising with excitement; it was no longer so deep as to be stationary. She was very certain that her eyes had not been darkened as to lids or waxed as to lashes. Her hair was beautifully dressed in sweeping waves with scarcely any artificial work upon it. Her dress was extremely tasteful and very expensive. There was no simper on her lips, nothing superficial. She was only a tired, homesick girl. As Linda looked at her she understood why Katy had cried over her. She felt tears beginning to rise in her own heart. She put both arms protectingly around Eileen.
“Why, you poor little thing,” she said wonderingly, “was it so damn’ bad as all that?”
Eileen stood straight. She held herself rigidly. She merely nodded. Then after a second she said: “Worse than anything you could imagine, Linda. Being rich with people who have grown rich by accident is a dreadful experience.”
“So I have always imagined,” said Linda. And then in her usual downright way she asked: “Why did you come, Eileen? Is there anything you wanted of me?”