Janet laughed, a weak pathetic little laugh that had no mirth in it. "He said she might get well again if she didn't have to work or worry any more. Huh! It's easy to say a thing like that to a poor woman that's got to work or starve, but it would be a good deal more sensible if they'd say right out: 'You better go drown yourself!'"
"Why, Janet!" Mrs. O'Brien's hands went up in shocked amazement.
"I mean it!" Janet insisted fiercely. "Do you suppose my mother works like she does because she wants to? I'd like to see that doctor married to a drunk and have some one say to him: 'Now don't work or worry and you'll be all right.'"
Mrs. O'Brien was much distressed. "Why, Janet dear, you surprise me to be talkin' so about that poor doctor."
"The doctor!" Janet turned on Mrs. O'Brien passionately. "I'm not talking about the doctor! I'm talking about my father!" She paused an instant, then flung out a terrible epithet which even in the mouth of a rough man would have been shocking.
Instinctively Rosie shrank and Mrs. O'Brien raised a startled, disapproving hand.
Janet tossed her head defiantly. "I don't care!" she insisted. "It's all his fault, the drunken brute, and if my mother dies tonight, it'll be him that's murdered her!" She ended with a sob and hid her face on Rosie's shoulder.
Mrs. O'Brien, still scandalised, opened her mouth to speak. But the right word which would express both reproof and commiseration was slow in coming, and at last she was forced to meet the difficulty by fleeing it. "I—I think I must be going in. I think I hear Geraldine. Sit still, Rosie dear." And then, her heart getting the better of her, she ended with: "Poor child! She's not herself today! Comfort her, Rosie!"
Rosie scarcely needed her mother's admonition. "There now, Janet dear, don't cry! Your mother's going to be all right—I know she is! She's been sick before and got over it."
Janet was not a person of tears. She swallowed her sobs now and slowly dried her eyes. "I'm sorry I used such strong language, Rosie, honest I am. And before your mother, too! You've got to excuse me. I know it wasn't ladylike."