Mamma made no defence, showed no disposition to reprove, or yet to resent. She searched around for her pocket-handkerchief again, found it, and resumed her crying.
"You said something about it to Robert at the breakfast table this morning, Lavinia?" reminded Auntie.
Mamma conceded this from behind the handkerchief at her eyes.
"You said, 'Robert, you didn't get in from the office till one o'clock last night, and you didn't come up to bed till past three? What is the matter? And this thing of no money again for the bills? What does it all mean?'"
Mamma lifted her head again. Her spirit had returned. "And he said," she spoke indignantly, "'For God's sake, Lavinia, when I'm trying to spare you as long as I can, don't come at me now with questions.' I didn't ask him to spare me!" with spirit. "I'm tired of pretending his way of keeping me in the dark's right. I've been pretending so when I didn't feel so for twenty years. I'm going to say it out now. And I didn't ask him to spare me. I asked him to tell me."
"Mamma, little Mamma!" from Selina, hurrying across the room to her side.
"Of course I wasn't competent at first, and proved I couldn't be trusted with money and the rest of it. I never had been trusted with anything. My mother bought my clothes and my father took the bills from her and paid them. But it doesn't go to prove I couldn't have been made trustworthy if Robert had been patient and showed me a little and trusted me till I could."
"Lavinia," from Auntie piteously, "I've misjudged you. You wouldn't criticize Robert and you wouldn't allow anyone else to criticize him before you?"
Mamma had resumed her soft crying and Selina was on her knees by her, trying to comfort her.