"I don't see how you can be so horrid to mamma, Edith. What are you thinking of? And when she is so worried about Neal, too."
"Neal! Why should we suffer for Neal? She has no right to order me; I won't be treated that way. The idea of it not being in good taste to drive with Tony Bronson!"
"Don't be so absurd, Edith. Why, even I know papa wouldn't want you to. It's very different from going with the Brenton boys that we have known all our lives. You think I'm such an infant, but I know that much, and any other time you would yourself. It is just because it is that hateful Bronson. I can't understand what you and Gertrude see in him. You are both so silly about him."
"I am not silly. I think he is very nice, that's all. I wish you wouldn't interfere, Cynthia. You are silly to have such a prejudice against him. I suppose I shall have to write that note, and I do hate to give in to Mrs. Franklin. Oh, why, why, why did papa marry again?"
She raised her voice irritably as she said this, and added: "All this fuss about Neal and everything! We never should have had it if the Gordons hadn't come into the family. Oh, I beg your pardon, I didn't see you." For standing in the doorway was her stepmother.
"I am sorry that the coming of the Gordons has caused you so much trouble, Edith. We—we are unfortunate."
She turned away and went up stairs.
"Edith, I don't see how you can," exclaimed Cynthia. "Mamma had so much trouble when she was a young girl, and she was so alone until she came here, and now all this about Neal. Really, I don't see how you can."
And she ran after her mother.
Edith, left alone, was a prey to conflicting emotions. She knew she had done wrong—very wrong. She was really sorry for the grief that Mrs. Franklin was suffering on Neal's account, and she had not wanted to hurt her.