"Joan—" the younger girl whispered, drawing nearer.
"What?"
"They had a nawful row last night—ma and pa—after you went."
"I bet he done all the rowing!"
"He"—Edna's thin, pale cheeks coloured faintly with indignation—"he said rotten things to her—said it was because you took after her made you want to go on the stage."
"That's like him, the brute!" Joan commented between her teeth. "What'd she say?"
"Nothing. Then he lit into Butch, but Butch stood up to him and told him to shut his face or he'd knock his block off."
"And he did shut his face, didn't he?"
Edna nodded vigorously. "Yeh—but he rowed with ma for hours after they'd went to bed. I could hear him fussing and swearing. She never answered one word."
Reminiscences of like experiences of her own, long white nights through which she had lain sleepless, listening to the endless, indistinguishable monologue of recrimination and abuse in the adjoining bedroom, softened Joan's mood.