THE OTHER MARGARET
499
loyal person and you haven't any right to say she is not."
"Loyal!" said Margaret in triumph. "Loyal!"
"Why yes. To her sister in Alabama, Margaret, just as much as
to us. Is it what you call slave-psychology to be loyal to your own
sister?"
But Margaret was not to be put down. She kept in mind the
main point, which was not Miiiie but the other Margaret.
"I notice," she said defiantly, "that when Millie sends you parts
of the money you lent her, you take it all right."
Poor child, she had fumbled, and Elwin· laid his hand on hers
on the table. "But Margaret! Of course I do," he said.
"If
I didn't,
wouldn't that be slave-psychology? Millie would feel very lowered
if I didn't take it."
·
"But she can't afford it," Margaret insisted.
"No, she can't afford it."
"Well then!" and she confronted the oppressor in her father.
"But she can't afford not to. She needs it for her pride. She needs
to think of herself as a person who pays her debts, as a responsible
person."
"I wonder," Lucy said, "I wonder how Millie is. Poor thing!"
She was not being irrelevant. She was successful in bringing her
husband up short. Yes, all that his "wisdom" had done was to lead
him to defeat his daughter in argument. And defeat made Margaret
stupid and obstinate. She said, "Well, anyway, it's not Margaret's
fault," and sat sulking.
Had he been truly the wise man he wanted to be, he would
have been able to explain, to Margaret and himself, the nature of the
double truth.
As
much as Margaret, he believed that "society is res–
ponsible." He believed the other truth too. He felt rather tired, as if
the little debate with Margaret had been more momentous than he
understood. Yet wisdom, a small measure of it, did seem to come. It
came suddenly, as no doubt was the way of moments of wisdom, and
he perceived what stupidly he had not understood earlier, that it was
not the other Margaret but herself that
his
Margaret was grieving
for, that in her foolish and passionate argument, with the foolish
phrases derived from the admired Miss Hoxie, she was defending
herself from her own impending responsibility. Poor thing, she saw it
moving toward her through the air at a great rate, and she did not
want it. Naturally enough, she did not want it. And he, for what
reason he did not know, was forcing it upon her.
He understood why Lucy, when they had risen from the table,
