“Why?” asked Mrs. Breen, in her turn, with unbroken tranquillity.
“Because I am a fool, and I couldn’t help him lie out of his engagement with her.”
“Didn’t he want to go?”
“I don’t know. Yes. They both wanted me to go with them. Simpletons! And while she had gone up-stairs for her wraps I managed to make him understand that I didn’t wish her to go, either; and he ran down to his boat, and came back with a story about its going to be rough, and looked at me perfectly delighted, as if I should be pleased. Of course, then, I made him take her.”
“And isn’t it going to be rough?” asked Mrs. Breen.
“Why, mother, the sea’s like glass.”
Mrs. Breen turned the subject. “You would have done better, Grace, to begin as you had planned. Your going to Fall River, and beginning practice there among those factory children, was the only thing that I ever entirely liked in your taking up medicine. There was sense in that. You had studied specially for it. You could have done good there.”
“Oh, yes,” sighed the girl, “I know. But what was I to do, when she came to us, sick and poor? I couldn’t turn my back on her, especially after always befriending her, as I used to, at school, and getting her to depend on me.”
“I don’t see how you ever liked her,” said Mrs. Breen.
“I never did like her. I pitied her. I always thought her a poor, flimsy little thing. But that oughtn’t to make any difference, if she was in trouble.”