"And it's time for my nap."
Susan, the oldest daughter, made a tremulous protest. "He's seventy-six years old, Mamma, and whatever he's done——"
"For a young woman that talked pretty loud of leavin' her husband when he came home kind of lit up from a club meetin'——" Mrs. Egg broke in. Susan collapsed and drew her gloves on hastily. Mrs. Egg ate another chocolate wafer and resumed: "This here's my business—and your papa's and Dammy's. I've got it in my head that that movie weekly picture they had of Buttercup Four with her price wrote out must have been shown in San Antonio. And you'll recollect that your papa and me stood alongside her while that fresh cameraman took the picture. If I was needin' a meal and saw I'd got a well-off son-in-law——"
"Mamma," said Susan, "you're perfectly cynical."
Mrs. Egg pronounced, "I'm forty-five years of age," and got up.
The daughters withdrew. Mrs. Egg covered the chocolate urn with a click and went into the kitchen. Two elderly farmhands went out of the porch door as she entered.
Mrs. Egg told the cook: "Least said, soon'st mended, Sadie. Give me the new cream. I guess I might's well make some spice cookies. Be pretty busy Wednesday. Dammy likes 'em a little stale."
"Mis' Egg," said the cook, "if this was Dammy that'd kind of strayed off and come home sick in his old age——"
"Give me the cream," Mrs. Egg commanded, and was surprised by the fierceness of her own voice. "I don't need any help seein' my duty, thanks!"
At six o'clock her duty became highly involved. A friend telephoned from town that the current-events weekly at the moving-picture theatre showed Adam in the view of the dreadnoughts at Guantánamo.