“Mother, please leave the Flask here anyhow.”
“Certainly not.”
“Whose is it?”
“It—a friend of mine loned it to me.”
“Who?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“You can’t tell me! Barbara, I am utterly bewildered. I sent you away a simple child, and you return to me—what?”
Well, we had about an hour’s fight over it, and we ended in a compromise. I gave up the Flask, and promised not to smoke and so forth, and I was to have some new dresses and a silk Sweater, and to be allowed to stay up until ten o’clock, and to have a desk in my room for my work.
“Work!” mother said. “Career! What next? Why can’t you be like Leila, and settle down to haveing a good time?”