"Why, Danny's bills come to three hundred dollars yet!" Jennie told her with heat. "And Sadie ain't well yet from over-eating that rich supper we had that night off of the Philadelphia caterer!"
"Yes, I feel it yet," said Sadie plaintively. "Just to think, Margaret, that Danny spent three hundred dollars for the party for you!"
"Did he get off so easily as that? The flowers were so abundant and the supper so nice, I would have supposed they would have cost more than that, if I had thought about the cost."
"Well, why didn't you think about the cost, when it was all for you?"
"I didn't think about it, my dears, because the cost of things doesn't interest me; I have so many more interesting things to think about. This, for instance," she said, holding up the dainty baby dress on which she had been sewing as they all sat together in the sitting-room, awaiting Daniel's coming home to his noon dinner.
"But it's a wife's place to——"
Daniel's entrance cut short Jennie's admonitions. The dinner-table talk, however, scarcely relieved the tension on Margaret's nerves.
Daniel was always expansive as to his business "deals" when he felt complacent, and to-day his state of mind was one of unusual satisfaction, for just before dinner Margaret had displayed to him (surreptitiously, to spare the virgin squeamishness of Jennie and Sadie) the baby things upon which she had been working, and his delight in them was like unto that of a woman. He was therefore talkative and confidential over his roast beef.
"Well, Margaret, you can be proud of the way your husband upholds Christian principles in this community. I received in my morning's mail a letter from the Board of Managers of the Y.W.C.A. thanking me for the stand I took at the meeting yesterday afternoon of the stockholders of the Country Club on the question of Sunday sports. Some of the men want tennis and golf allowed on Sunday, but I stand for the sanctity of the Sabbath, and I wouldn't give in one inch. I'm the biggest stockholder of the club and they can't go against my vote in anything. I may say I rule the Country Club. One fellow, Abe Meyers, got up and declared he'd organize a new country club before he'd 'submit to the tyranny of one hidebound Pharisee!' What do you think of that?" chuckled Daniel. "'The tyranny of one hidebound Pharisee!' Sour grapes, of course. He hasn't the cash or the influence to organize another club. I told them that so long as I was a member of that club, the sanctity of the Sabbath should be preserved. Golf and tennis six days of the week, but on the Sabbath, no sports; and I said I knew I had behind me the support of our Christian community. You see, Margaret, if I withdrew, the club couldn't go on."
"That very fact," said Margaret, her voice rather weak, "ought, I should think, make you unwilling to impose your theories upon the other members. Noblesse oblige, you know."