Well, let me hear how you feel about this. ANGELICA. "Now!" she said as she dropped it into the box. "Now, if only, _only_ I can have my chance!" II One might imagine that her mother would be pleased with the new and complete change that came over Angelica--her third phase, so to speak; but she wasn’t. This cool, quiet resolution seemed to Mrs. Kennedy more profoundly immoral than all her daughter’s past wildness. It would be a horrible thing, it would upset all her universe, if she were forced to see such guilt as Angelica’s going undiscovered and forgotten. Even a sinful life would have seemed to her more hopeful, for it would have presupposed a girl driven to desperation by shame and remorse; but Angelica going off to her work in the morning, neat and alert, her old-time swagger supplanted by a steely self-assurance, was an outrage. She was actually ambitious, too; she didn’t seem to know that her life was ruined and ended. She studied in the evening, writing exercises, learning things by heart, going at the English tongue, spelling, composition, and literature as the books decreed, fiercely concentrated upon her work. She wouldn’t go to the movies, or to take a walk; she wouldn’t even talk; she just sat there, with her books. Her efforts at self-improvement were not touching, had nothing of stumbling pathos about them. She was too clever, too careful. She learned to dress with quiet precision, without paint, without flamboyant allure. She learned to speak better, she stopped swearing, except under great provocation; she even learned to control her temper to a degree that alarmed her mother. The hot, sudden anger was there--it came as readily as ever; but it was still now. She didn’t "fly out." And all this disturbed and exasperated Mrs. Kennedy. She had no sympathy for any of it. "Whatever in the world do you expect to _do_?" she asked irritably, one evening, while Angelica sat reading a paper book on etiquette. "I’m going to be as good as the best of them," said Angelica. "Why shouldn’t I be?" "Plenty of reason why you shouldn’t!" said her mother tartly. But the wicked continued to prosper, until Mrs. Kennedy almost believed that God gave no justice. One day a letter came for Angelica. This startled her mother, for they never got letters. "It’s from him," she thought. "Bad news, maybe!" But it was postmarked New York; it couldn’t be from Eddie. "Now, whoever in the world can be writing to Angie!" she thought, alarmed and uneasy, as she always was over the girl’s mysterious activities. However she might regard Angelica’s moral shortcomings, she loved her only child. She knew that she deserved punishment, but she would have given her own life to save her from it. Directly Angie came in from work she handed her the letter. "Oh, Gawd!" she muttered. "Mommer! It’s from her--the one that’s got the baby."