496
PARTISAN REVIEW
that Margaret without your nonsense. Nobody is being exploited in
this house and nobody is being bullied and I'm not going to have you
making situations about nothing. I'm sure your Miss Hoxie is very
sweet and nice, but you seem to have got your ideas from her all
mixed up. You weren't that way about Millie when she was with us.
As a matter of fact," Lucy said with remorseless irony, "you were
often not at all nice to her."
Margaret had not heard the end of Lucy's speech. At the men–
tion of Miss Hoxie in the tone that Lucy has used-"your Miss
Hoxie"-at the sacred name of her teacher blasphemously uttered,
she looked at her mother with the horror of seeing her now in her
true terrible colors. The last bond between them had snapped at this
attack upon her heart's best loyalty.
But Lucy was taking no account of finer feelings. She closed the
door and said firmly, "Now look here, the simple fact is that that
Margaret is a thoroughly disagreeable person, a nasty, mean person."
"Oh, she is not," Margaret wailed. And then, despite all her
passion, the simple fact broke in upon her irresistibly. Elwin's heart
quite melted as he saw her confront the fact and struggle with it. For
the fact was as Lucy had stated it, and he himself at that moment
had to realize it. And it was wonderful to see that Margaret's mind,
whatever the inclination of her will, was unable to resist a fact. But
the mind that had momentarily deserted her will, came quickly
again to its help. "She's not responsible," she said desperately. "It's
not her fault. She couldn't help it. Society--" But at that big
word she halted, unable to handle it. "We can't blame her," she said
defiantly but a little lamely.
At that moment Lucy saw the green clay lamb that Elwin was
still holding. She rushed to it and took it and cried, "Margaret, is this
yours? I've never seen it, why didn't you show it to me?"
It was, of course, a decided point for Margaret that her birth–
day surprise was spoiled. She sat there looking dry and indifferent
amid the ruins of family custom. Elwin said, "It's a birthday present
for you, Lucy. You weren't supposed to see it," and their glances met
briefly. He had been a little treacherous, for he could have managed
to put the lamb out of sight, but some craftiness, not entirely con–
scious, had suggested its usefulness for peace.
"It's so
lovely,"
Lucy said. "Is it really for me?"
Margaret had to acknowledge that it was, but with an elaborate
ungraciousness from her bruised and empty heart. Her mother might
have the gift, meaningless as it now was. But Lucy was in a flood
of thanks and praise impossible to withstand-it was lovely, she said,
