“LIKE it! Daddy, tell me: There is another Woman's Club in Scarford, isn't there? This can't be the only one.”
“No, it ain't. I believe there's another. A different one—a sensible one, so I've heard tell. Mrs. Fenholtz—you've heard me speak of her, Gertie; she's a fine woman—she belonged to the other one. She wanted Serena to join, but Annette Black had her innin's first, and after that 'twas all off.”
“I see, I see.”
“You see; but what are you goin' to do? Are you goin' to any more of them blessed meetin's?”
“I may. I probably shall. Daddy, dear, you must trust me. It is all right, I tell you.”
Ordinarily this would have been enough. But to-night it was not. Captain Dan had spent some troubled hours since dinner and his nerves were on the ragged edge.
“All right!” he repeated impatiently. “Don't say that again. Is it all right for you to be gettin' into the same mess your mother is in? Is it all right for you to be talkin' about society and Chapters and—and I don't know what all? I did trust you, Gertie. I said so. I told Serena so this very afternoon. She was talkin' about Cousin Percy, she's always praisin' him up, and she said you liked him just as much as she did. He was a cultivated, superior young man, she said, and you recognized it. I laughed at her. I says, 'That's all right,' I says, 'but I wouldn't take too much stock in that. Gertie knows what she's up to. She's got some plan in her head, she told me so. She may pretend—'”
His daughter interrupted him.
“Father!” she exclaimed indignantly. “Why, Daddy! did you tell Mother THAT?”
“Course I did! Why not? It's so, ain't it? What is the plan, Gertie? What are you up to? You are pretendin', aren't you? Don't tell me you ain't! Don't tell me—”