Sylvia heard her mother's voice saying coldly, "You ought to be
ashamed to use such a word!" and her father retort, "It's the _only_
word that expresses it! You know as well as I do that she cared no
more for Ephraim Smith than for the first man she might have solicited
on the street--nor so much! God! It makes me sick to look at her and
think of the price she paid for her present damn Olympian serenity."

Sylvia heard her mother begin to clear off the table. There was a
rattle of dishes through which her voice rose impatiently. "Oh,
Elliott, why be so melodramatic always, and spoil so much good
language! She did only what every girl brought up as she was, would
have done. And, anyhow, are you so very sure that in your heart
you're not so awfully hard on her because you're envious of that very
prosperity?"

He admitted, with acrimony, the justice of this thrust. "Very likely.
Very likely!--everything base and mean in me, that you keep down,
springs to life in me at her touch. I dare say I do envy her--I'm
quite capable of that--am I not her brother, with the same--"

Mrs. Marshall said hastily: "Hush! Hush! Here's Judith. For Heaven's
sake don't let the child hear you!"

For the first time the idea penetrated Sylvia's head that she ought
not to have listened. Buddy was now soundly asleep: she detached her
hand from his, and went soberly along the hall into her own room. She
did not want to see her father just then.

A long time after, Mother called up to say that Aunt Victoria had come