“If I gave up my bar,” said Mrs. Mott hotly, “who would pay the rent of our chapel?”
“Well, but the chapel got along before you joined,” Jinny reminded her mildly.
“Heaping up debt!” shrilled Mrs. Mott, with flashing eyes.
“Then what’s the good of poisoning off the men?” argued Jinny, smiling. “Where would your bar be without them?”
“Women could learn to drink,” said Mrs. Mott fiercely, “and smoke too.”
But the latter accomplishment seemed so comically impossible to Jinny—who had never seen Polly over her cigar and milk—that she burst out laughing at the image of it, and her laughter made Mrs. Mott fiercer, and that lady said for two pins she’d wear pink pantaloons like the Bloomerites. As Jinny did not offer the pins, but laughed even more merrily at the new picture presented to her imagination, relations with Mrs. Mott became strained, and when at their next meeting Jinny sensibly remarked that if the law really gave Mr. Mott his wife’s possessions, it was useless going to it, all that lady’s indomitable spirit turned against her whilom confidante. “You take his part like everybody else,” she cried bitterly. “But don’t think I haven’t seen him ogling you!”
“Do you mean I’ve ogled him?” said Jinny, incensed.
“I don’t say that, but you can’t dislike his admiration—why else are you on his side?”
“I am not on his side—I detest him.”
Mrs. Mott flew off at a tangent. “Then you ought to be grateful to me for protecting you against him.”