Their chairs were not far apart, but the tones of their voices indicated an immeasurable gulf that had been deepening for years. Falkner cleared his voice.
"As I have told you so often, Bessie, we are running behind all the time.
It has got to a point where it must stop."
"What do you suggest?"
"You say that three servants are necessary?"
"You can see for yourself that they are busy all the time. There's work for four persons in this house, and there ought to be a governess beside. I don't at all like the influence of that school on Mildred—"
"Ought!" he exclaimed.
"If people live in a certain kind of house, in a certain neighborhood, they must live up to it,—that is all. If you wish to live as the Johnstons live, why that is another matter altogether."
Her logic was imperturbable. There was an unexpressed axiom: "If you want a dowd for your wife who can't dress or talk and whom nobody cares to know,—why you should have married some one else." Bessie awaited his reply in unassailable attractiveness.
"Very well," Falkner said slowly. "That being so, I have made up my mind what to do."
Mildred entered the room at this moment, looking for a book. She was eight, and one swift glance at her parents' faces was enough to show her quick intelligence that they were "discussing."