“I do. What else are they, pray?”
Mrs. Dunn was finding it difficult to keep her temper. To be catechised in this contemptuously lofty manner by one to whom she considered herself so immensely superior, was too much. She forgot the careful plan of campaign which she had intended to follow in this interview, and now interrupted in her turn. And Captain Elisha, who also was something of a strategist, smiled at the fire.
“We do have our social duties, our duties to society,” snapped the widow, hotly. “They are necessary ones. Having been born—or risen to—a certain circle, we recognize the responsibilities attached to it. We are careful with whom we associate; we have to be. As for dress, we dress as others of our friends do.”
“And maybe a little better, if you can, hey?”
“If we can—yes. I presume—” with crushing irony—“dress in South Denboro counts but little.”
“You wouldn’t say that if you ever went to sewin’ circle,” with a chuckle. “Still, compared to the folks at your meetin’-house this morning, our congregation would look like a flock of blackbirds alongside of a cage full of Birds of Paradise. But most of us—the women folks especial—dress as well as we can.”
“As well as you can!” triumphantly. “There! you see? And you live as well as you can, don’t you?”
“If you mean style, why, we don’t set as much store by it as you do.”
“Nonsense! We are obliged to be,” with a slight shudder at the vulgarism, “stylish. If we should lapse, if we should become shabby and behind the fashion or live in that way, people would wonder and believe it was because we could not afford to do otherwise.”
“Well, s’pose they did, you’d know better yourselves. Can’t you be independent?”