"I think," declared Mrs. Waterman, "that it is a good deal our business. We can't make the world over to suit ourselves, and we can't fly in the face of decency without getting scratched. And when a woman brought up as Lois was does what she did, and runs through with her money, and comes home—"
She gulped in her effort to express the enormity of her sister's transgressions; whereupon Mrs. Fosdick caught the ball and flung back:—
"Of course, if Lois is in need of help, we all stand ready to help her. She must understand that we feel strongly the ties of blood, and I want to say that I'm willing to do my share, in the very fullest sense."
Lois rose impatiently.
"Don't be a lot of geese, you girls! Of course, you're all cut up at seeing me so unexpectedly, but I'm not going to let you be foolish about it. It's all in a lifetime anyway: and I really wish you wouldn't say things which to-morrow or the day after you'll be sorry for. I understand as perfectly as though you ran on all night just how you feel; you're horrified, ashamed, outraged—all those things. Bless me, you wouldn't be respectable women if you were not! If you fell on my neck and kissed me I should resent it. Really I should! You would be a disgrace to civilization if my showing up here on Christmas morning didn't give you nausea. I've been divorced twice, and anybody with any sort of nice feeling about life would make a rumpus about it. I'm rather annoyed about it myself; so that's all perfectly regular. You have said just what you ought to have said and you feel just as you should feel. Now that's understood, why not talk of something else and be comfortable?"
The three men had discreetly betaken themselves across the hall and the children of Amzi II were alone.
"You forget, Lois, that there are other persons besides ourselves to consider. If it were just Amzi and us—" persisted Mrs. Waterman, shifting her ground before this shameless confession.
"There's the whole world, when you come to that," said Lois. "What's in your mind, Jo,—Tom and Phil? Well, there's nothing novel in that; I thought about them a good deal before I came back. You may scratch Tom off the list; he's clear out of it. But as for Phil—"
"As for Phil, you have no right—"
"I haven't the slightest claim on Phil, of course; I never said I had, and I don't pretend to have. Please don't assume, Fanny, that I've lost all the wits I ever had! I'll say to you frankly that I feel that my coming may be troublesome to Phil; and yet the fact that I am here" (she smiled and threw out her arms, allowing them to fall to emphasize the futility of words)—"the fact that I am here shows that I have considered that and decided to take the risk of coming, in spite of Phil."