Emily was rising. She wiped her eyes. "I'll go up and talk to her," she said.
When she came into the painted room, Martha, who was sitting on a day bed, looked at her in surprise, and said, shortly: "What are you crying about? Did he do anything to you?" She spoke as if her father might have struck her mother.
"I was crying because you're so—because you speak that way to your father. I can't stand it, Martha!"
"You ought to have got me a civilized father, then—a human being. I get so mad at him!"
"You've got to stop it! I'm not going to live in a house with you two quarreling all the time."
"Oh, I'll clear out! I'm not anxious to stay. You wait till I'm twenty!"
"Martha, you needn't act this way. You needn't try to make out you're the offended one. Did you know he was coming here to-night?"
Martha looked at her mother defiantly. She hesitated. She was a truthful child, at least. She said, shortly, after a second, "Yes, I did."
"Did you ask him? Did you arrange to have him come when we were away?"
"You never asked me questions like this about other people."