Quite without reason Doris laughed. After all, what she had conjured up as a ghost was turning into a human possibility. It was never to frighten her in the future. Joan had felled the spectre by her first stroke.
Then Nancy spoke:
"I never want to hear his name again," she said, firmly, relentlessly.
Doris looked at her in amazement. Later she confided to Joan her surprise.
"I did not know the child had such sternness."
Joan shrugged her shoulders and smiled.
"Nan is like a rock underneath, Aunt Dorrie," she said. "I suppose it is—what shall I say?—blood! It is concentrated in Nan. She's like you. Disgrace, or what seemed like disgrace, would kill her—it would make me fight!"
And after that conversation all inclination to confide further in the girls as to their relationship or lack of it deserted Doris.
She saw a new cause for caution and went back to the stand she had taken when the children were babies—but with far less courage.
"When they marry, of course, it must be told."