I could hear her retailing my perfections to Mr. Albertson and my heart sank. Masterful, managing people crush me. If the man from Georgia liked me, as the man from Idaho did, I foresaw a struggle and I seem to have exhausted all my combative force in the year before my husband died. I looked at little Constance and caught her in the act of popping the cherry into her mouth. It was large and she had to force it into her cheek and keep it there like a squirrel with a nut. An expression of alarm was in her face, there was evidently less room for it than she had expected.
Betty went ruthlessly on.
“Your present way of living is absurd—you, made for marriage.”
I saw little Constance’s eyes grow round with curiosity, but she did not dare to speak.
“Made for companionship. If you were a suffragette or a writer, or trimmed hats or ran a tea-room, it would be different, but you’re a thoroughly domestic woman and ought to have a home.”
Little Constance bit the cherry with a sharp crunching sound. Betty looked at her.
“Constance, are you eating your lunch?”
Little Constance lifted her bib, held it to her mouth, and nodded over it.
The danger was averted. Betty turned to me.
“Marriage is the only life for a normal woman. Judkins, I’ll have some more of those sweetbreads.”