"If you don't, you ought to. Since this retainer from Captain Haney, Ben is urging an immediate marriage."
Lee Congdon was an unconquerable realist and truth-teller, and she could not at the moment utter any other than a divergent word. "We got you here to-night to talk over that Haney business. We don't entirely like it; at least, I don't. Frank has no responsibility, never had. Haney is not a bad man, and she isn't a bit low or common; but folks think she is. And it's going to hurt you both, I'm afraid, to have anything to do socially with them."
"Oh, socially!" Alice cried, in disgust. "I thought we were coming to the big and boundless West, where such things don't count."
"You have, and you haven't. The Springs is a little of the West, a little of England, and a good deal of the East. It's a foolish town in some ways, and I warn you lots of nice people will find it inconvenient to call on you for fear of meeting Mrs. Haney."
"Oh, rats!"
"Absurd, isn't it? I'm glad you put on that dress. You don't look tired now; your cheeks are blazing."
"With wrath—not health."
"At me?"
"Oh no. At these people who assume to dictate whom we shall know."
"They don't do that, dear; they only think you're paying too much for Ben's new office. But come down to dinner; we'll fight this out later."