“I'm not hungry. Willy, I wish you'd go away. What right we got to tie you up with us, anyhow? We're a poor lot. You're not comfortable and you know it. D'you know where she is now?”
“She” in the vernacular of the house, was always Mrs. Boyd.
“She forgot to make your bed, and she's doing it now.”
He ran up the stairs, and forcibly putting Mrs. Boyd in a chair, made up his own bed, awkwardly and with an eye on her chest, which rose and fell alarmingly. It was after that that he warned Edith.
“She's not strong,” he said. “She needs care and—well, to be happy. That's up to the three of us. For one thing, she must not have a shock. I'm going to warn Dan against exploding paper bags; she goes white every time.”
Dan was at a meeting, and Willy dried the supper dishes for Edith. She was silent and morose. Finally she said:
“She's not very strong for me, Willy. You needn't look so shocked. She loves Dan and you, but not me. I don't mind, you know. She doesn't know it, but I do.”
“She is very proud of you.”
“That's different. You're right, though. Pride's her middle name. It nearly killed her at first to take a roomer, because she is always thinking of what the neighbors will say. That's why she hates me sometimes.”
“I wish you wouldn't talk that way.”