Ten minutes later he and Margaret sat facing each other from either
side of his flat-topped office-desk.
Miss Hamilton's conscience-clear self-possession as she had passed
through his office to go to her luncheon, and his wife's equally
guiltless aspect as she had greeted him with cheerful affection, had
been a little disarming, it is true, to his determined purpose. But
Daniel was not readily diverted from a line he had decided upon, and
Margaret's easy indifference to his expressed wish as to her
associating with Miss Hamilton had aroused his obstinacy. And Daniel's
obstinacy was a snag to be reckoned with.
So, seated opposite her at his desk, he had expounded to her very
forcibly his reasons for prohibiting any social relations whatever with
any one of his office staff.
"And now," he concluded his harangue, "I _lay my command_ upon you, my
dear."
"Oh, but, my dear!" laughed Margaret, "that's rather absurd, you know!
Now listen, Daniel. If you warned me against Miss Hamilton as a person
who was immoral or illiterate or ill-bred, I should of course see the
reasonableness of your objection to her. But when she is really
superior in every respect to every one of the people you do want me to
be intimate with: better born, better bred, more intelligent; when my
intimacy with her is going to mean to me more than I have words to
express--a close friendship with a congenial and stimulating mind and
character--you can't expect me to give it up for such reasons as you
offer me, Daniel, chief among them being that she works for her living.
But in the South we are so used, since the war, to seeing gentlewomen
work for their living, and we are so unused to meeting, socially,
people like the Ocksreiders and the Millers, who tell me (one of them
did) that her house is 'het by steam' and who say, 'Outen the
light'--well, dear, you see," she concluded, rising, "it is ridiculous
to discuss it. Let us go home to luncheon."
"Sit down, Margaret."
"But I'm famishing, Daniel. I'm weak with hunger. You'll have to take
me home in a taxicab if you don't take me soon."
"Sit down! You've got to promise to obey me in this matter, Margaret."
"Oh!" her voice rippled with laughter, "this is the twentieth century
A.D., not B.C., Daniel. You're mixed in your dates! And you seem to
forget you married me, you didn't adopt me."
"You must drop at once any further relations with my secretary."
"But, dear," she exclaimed in surprise, "haven't I yet made it clear to
you that I don't intend to?"
"I am accustomed to being obeyed, Margaret!"
"By whom? Your wives?"
"Come, come, I want your promise."
"Daniel," she plead with him, "please don't be so tiresome! I am sure
that you, clever lawyer that you are, must recognize that my position
is quite impregnable and yours weak and indefensible, asking me to be
friends with people who 'outen the light' and to cut one with whom I
can have such improving conversations as that to which you
ignominiously listened just now! Why didn't you honourably close your
door? Could you _understand_ our deep remarks, Daniel?"
"I'm waiting for your promise, Margaret."