"It comes more natural to some," she said. "All Violet wants is telling. You should tell her, Ranny."
"Tell her what?"
"Well—tell her to take Baby out more. Tell her to give her a bath night and morning. Tell her little babies get ill and die if you don't keep everything about them as clean as clean. Tell her anything you like. But don't tell her to-night."
"Why not?"
"Because she's upset."
"What's upset her?"
"I don't know. You'll upset her if you go flying out at her about those old bottles like you did; and if you go calling her bad names. I heard you."
Was it possible? (Why, he hadn't let it out, or, if he had, it had gone, quite innocently, through the open window.)
"If you're not as gentle as gentle with her you'll upset her something awful. You've got to be as gentle with her as you are with Baby."
So she thought he wasn't gentle, did she? She thought he bullied Violet and upset her? Whatever could Violet have been saying about him? Well—well—he couldn't tell her that he had been as gentle with her as he was with Baby, and that the gentler he was the more Violet was upset.