"He can't fail. He can't fail."
"Yes, but I can!" cried Connie, springing to her feet. "I won't go back there. You don't know what you're sending me to. You don't know. The Todds were awful, awful. You should have heard them when—when they thought—— You don't know what it's like up there. The lot of them. They'll be all against me. They're proud. They're terrible. There's no bitterness like theirs'll be to me. If you send me there, I'll never, never have another moment's happiness. They'll watch and they'll watch. They'll suspect everything I do or say. Oh, they're hard, and that fearful old cripple—sitting in a corner, watching, watching—— You'll send me to that, just to save your skins, just to save your snobbish, rotten little ideas you'll send me to—to——"
Muriel couldn't bear it. She couldn't bear again the clash and jangle of that terrible violence. "Connie!" she cried. "Connie, don't, it isn't true. It's for your sake—it—they—— You mustn't say things like that."
Wide-eyed with astonishment Connie faced her, amazed that Muriel could so assert her personality.
Then she laughed. "You're backing them up too, are you? Of course. Your mother's little darling always! But I'll get round Father. I'll make him understand."
"Connie dear, you must see that for your own sake, and for the sake of the child, there's no other way. What would you do? You could not earn your own living alone, much less burdened like that."
"Who's to blame for that?"
"And then—the scandal. Your name . . ."
"I'll run away," sobbed Connie, for the twentieth time. But even then the shrewd common sense that underlay her recklessness realized the hopelessness of her position. Without support from her parents or from Ben, she could not face the world. Beyond her hysteria she foresaw defeat, yet could not yet acknowledge it. The desire to find an outlet for her emotion was too strong.
"I'll never face it," she repeated softly. Then, "Why doesn't he come?"