Her tone was so eager, so intense, that it seemed almost angry. Dorothy only answered:—
“It makes no difference.”
“You know what that means? You guess where I learned to do that?”
“Yes.”
“And still you do not cast me out? Still you do not command me to go away?”
“Not at all. Why should I?”
“But why not? Most women of your class and in your position would send me away.”
“I am perhaps not like most women of my class and condition. At any rate, as I told you a while ago, I know you, I trust you, I believe in you. You are you. What else matters? Let me tell you a little life-story. My mother was a musician, who performed in public. Everybody about here scorned her for that. But she was the superior of all of them. She was a woman of genius and strong character. She hated shams and conventionalities, and she was a good woman. When the war came, she set to work nursing the wounded. She was shot to death a little while ago, and the soldiers loved her so that they rolled a great boulder over her grave and carved a loving inscription upon it with their own hands. Many of them were killed in doing that; but whenever one fell, another took his place. Do you think, Evelyn, that I, her daughter, could ever scorn a good woman like you, merely because she was or had been an actor in a show? I tell you, Evelyn Byrd, I know you, and that is quite enough for me.”
“Is it enough for Cousin Arthur?”
“Yes, assuredly.”