"Yes, I know. But she never was equal to him. I saw that from the start; but I tried to blind myself to it. And when he kept coming----"
"You never thought of me!" cried the girl, with a bitterness that reached her mother's heart. "I was nobody! I couldn't feel! No one could care for me!" The turmoil of despair, of triumph, of remorse and resentment, which filled her soul, tried to express itself in the words.
"No," said the mother humbly. "I didn't think of you. Or I didn't think of you enough. It did come across me sometimes that may be----But it didn't seem as if----And your going on so for Irene----"
"You let me go on. You made me always go and talk with him for her, and you didn't think I would talk to him for myself. Well, I didn't!"
"I'm punished for it. When did you--begin to care for him!"
"How do I know? What difference does it make? It's all over now, no matter when it began. He won't come here any more, unless I let him." She could not help betraying her pride in this authority of hers, but she went on anxiously enough, "What will you say to Irene? She's safe as far as I'm concerned; but if he don't care for her, what will you do?"
"I don't know what to do," said Mrs. Lapham. She sat in an apathy from which she apparently could not rouse herself. "I don't see as anything can be done."
Penelope laughed in a pitying derision.
"Well, let things go on then. But they won't go on."
"No, they won't go on," echoed her mother. "She's pretty enough, and she's capable; and your father's got the money--I don't know what I'm saying! She ain't equal to him, and she never was. I kept feeling it all the time, and yet I kept blinding myself."