"Let me know the worst at once, Ruth," she broke out, rather fiercely.
"At my age I can't stand suspense as I could once. What tramp or beggar
or clodhopper have you picked out? I know you too well to suppose it's
anybody respectable."
When I named Tom, she at first pretended not to know him, although she
has seen him a dozen times in her visits here, and once condescended to
say that for a countryman he was really almost handsome.
"I know it's the same name as that baby's father's," she ended, her
voice getting icier and icier, "but of course no respectable woman would
think of marrying him."
"Then I'm not a respectable woman," I retorted, feeling the blood rise
into my face, "for I'm thinking of it."
We looked for a moment into each other's eyes, and I felt, however I
appeared, as if I were defying anything she could say.
"So he has taken advantage of your mothering his baby, has he?" she
brought out at last.
I responded that he did not even suspect I meant to marry him. She
stared, and demanded how he was to find out. I answered that I could
think of no way except for me to tell him. She threw up her hands in
pretended horror.
"I dare say," she burst out, "he only got you to take the baby so that
you'd feel bound to him. I should think when he'd disgraced himself you
might have self-respect enough to let him alone. Oh, what would Cousin
Horace say!"
Then she saw she was really hurting me, and her eyes softened somewhat.
"I shan't congratulate you, Ruth, if that's what you expect; but since
you will be a fool in your own obstinate way, I hope it'll make you
happy."