“It seems to me that I needn't say.”
“Why, but you must! You must, you know. I can't be left so! I must know where I stand! I must be sure of my ground! I can't go on without understanding just how much you mean by my being mistaken.”
She looked Annie in the face with eyes superficially expressive of indignant surprise, and Annie perceived that she wished to restore herself in her own esteem by browbeating some one else into the affirmation of her innocence.
“Well, if you must know, Mrs. Munger, I mean that you ought to have remembered Mr. Putney's infirmity, and that it was cruel to put temptation in his way. Everybody knows that he can't resist it, and that he is making such a hard fight to keep out of it. And then, if you press me for an opinion, I must say that you were not justifiable in asking Mr. Peck to take part in a social entertainment when we had explicitly dropped that part of the affair.”
Mrs. Munger had not pressed Annie for an opinion on this point at all; but in their interest in it they both ignored the fact. Mrs. Munger tacitly admitted her position in retorting, “He needn't have stayed.”
“You made him stay—you remember how—and he couldn't have got away without being rude.”
“And you think he wasn't rude to scold me before my guests?”
“He told you the truth. He didn't wish to say anything, but you forced him to speak, just as you have forced me.”
“Forced you? Miss Kilburn!”
“Yes. I don't at all agree with Mr. Peck in many things, but he is a good man, and last night he spoke the truth. I shouldn't be speaking it if I didn't tell you I thought so.”