His little eyes were tense with irritation and suspicion as he watched her.
“Yeh, you’ve got a nerve, all right,” Mabel piped up. “I never come trotting in at three in the afternoon! You’re just losing all respect for yourself, that’s what.”
“Say, listen, I’m not a child, any more,” Blanche answered, wearily resuming the old, useless blah-blahing. “I went to a party down in the Village and stayed overnight at my girl-friend’s studio, Margaret Wheeler, but I don’t see why I have to make any excuses about it. If the rest of you don’t like the way I act, I’ll pack up my things and leave, that’s all.”
“You will, huh?” her father asked. “Well, maybe we’ll tell you ourselves to clear outa here. ’F you can’t show any respect for your folks, then it’s high time somethin’ was done about it!”
“Yeh, that goes for me, too,” Harry said.
He suspected that his sister had rejoined Campbell, and he determined to look Joe up and frighten him into marrying her. The damn fool—she didn’t have sense enough to look out for herself, and if she kept it up, she’d wind up by becoming little better than the easy skirts he knocked around with. He wouldn’t let that happen to his sister—not he.
Kate Palmer stuck to her invariable rôle of peacemaker, though she felt sick at heart at her daughter’s silliness and looseness. She was staying out overnight with men and getting to be a regular bad woman. It was really terrible.
“Of course, we won’t let you leave home,” she said, “but you’re actin’ sim-ply awful nowadays. You’ll be disgracin’ all of us the next thing we know, gettin’ into some trouble ’r somethin’. Won’t you promise your ma not to stay out all night? Won’t you, Blanie?”
“You know I don’t want to hurt you, ma,” Blanche replied, as she stroked her mother’s hair, “but just the same, I’ve got to lead my own life from now on. I’m a grown-up person, ma, and not a slave.”
“You know we’re just askin’ you to act decint-like, you know it,” her mother said, sadly. “We’re none of us tryin’ to hold you down.”