She was lifting from her chair.
“Which is it,” he asked roughly, “a boy, or——?”
“A girl,” she said, and she dropped back.
“The fact is,” he resumed, “a little girl at home makes the mother work harder in the store. And that’s the report on you. They say you’re a hard worker, so I’d like to keep you on, regular, for life.”
She lifted again.
“But——” he said.
“But,” she collapsed.
“I don’t see,” he said, “how you can work hard, regular, if you go on telling yourself that lie every hour, every day; that you’re bad.”
He got up, huffily. “How bad are you, anyway? How good you been since—during the last five years?”
“As good as I was before,” she blazed, springing to her feet.