“Don't you know me well enough by this time?” he demanded, and Henry admitted that he did.
“Do you suppose I want all this blessed little town in a tumult, and the devil to pay?” said Meeks. “It is near time for me to start some daisy wine, too. I shouldn't have a minute free. There'd be suits for damages, and murder trials, and the Lord knows what. I'd rather make my daisy wine. Leave this damned sticky mess with me, and I'll see to it. What in creation any young woman in her senses wants to spend her time in making such stuff for, anyway, beats me. Women are all more or less fools, anyhow. I suppose they can't help it, but we ought to have it in mind.”
“I suppose there's something in it,” said Henry, rather doubtfully.
Meeks laughed. “Oh, I don't expect any man with a wife to agree with me,” he said. “You might as well try to lift yourself by your boot-straps; but I've got standing-ground outside the situation and you haven't. Good-night, Henry. Don't fret yourself over this. I'll let you know as soon as I know myself.”
Henry, passing the Ayres house on his way home, fancied he heard again a sob, but this time it was so stifled that he was not sure. “It's mighty queer work, anyway,” he thought. He thought also that though he should have liked a son, he was very glad that he and Sylvia had not owned a daughter. He was fond of Rose, but, although she was a normal girl, she often gave him a sense of mystery which irritated him.
Had Henry Whitman dreamed of what was really going on in the Ayres house, he would have been devoutly thankful that he had no daughter. He had in reality heard the sob which he had not been sure of. It had come from Lucy's room. Her mother was there with her. The two had been closeted together ever since Rose had gone. Lucy had rushed up-stairs and pulled off her pretty gown with a hysterical fury. She had torn it at the neck, because the hooks would not unfasten easily, before her mother, who moved more slowly, had entered the room.
“What are you doing, Lucy?” Mrs. Ayres asked, in a voice which was at once tender and stern.
“Getting out of this old dress,” replied Lucy, fiercely.
“Stand round here by the light,” said her mother, calmly. Lucy obeyed. She stood, although her shoulders twitched nervously, while her mother unfastened her gown. Then she began almost tearing off her other garments. “Lucy,” said Mrs. Ayres, “you are over twenty years old, and a woman grown, but you are not as strong as I am, and I used to take you over my knee and spank you when you were a child and didn't behave, and I'll do it now if you are not careful. You unfasten that corset-cover properly. You are tearing the lace.”
Lucy gazed at her mother a moment in a frenzy of rage, then suddenly her face began to work piteously. She flung herself face downward upon her bed, and sobbed long, hysterical sobs. Then Mrs. Ayres waxed tender. She bent over the girl, and gently untied ribbons and unfastened buttons, and slipped a night-gown over her head. Then she rolled her over in the bed, as if she had been a baby, and laid her own cheek against the hot, throbbing one of the girl. “Mother's lamb,” she said, softly. “There, there, dear, mother knows all about it.”