Sue was regarding her steadily. "What did your mother do without you? And when you die, where shall _I_ be?--Alone! Ah, you've seen the pathos of your own situation!--But how about mine?" For a second time in a single day, this was a changed Sue, unaccountably clear-visioned, and plain of speech. "Dear me!" cried her mother, mockingly. "Our eyes are open all of a sudden!" "Yes,--my eyes are open." "Why not open your mouth?" "Thank you for the suggestion. I shall. For twenty-five years, my eyes have been shut. I've always said, 'My mother is sweet, and pious, and kind. She's one of that lovely type that's passing.' (Thank Heaven, the type _is_ passing!) If now and then you were a little severe with me--oh, I've noticed it because people have sometimes interfered, as Hattie did this morning--I've never minded at all. I've said, 'Whatever I am, I owe to my mother. And what she does is right.' Anything you said or did to me never made any difference in the wonderful feeling I had about you--the feeling of love and belief. All this time I've never once thought of rebelling. But what you said and did to another--to her, a girl who needs kindness and sympathy, who's never done you an intentional wrong----! Oh, you're not really gentle and charitable! You're cruel, mother!" "I am just." "The right kind of a woman today gives other women a chance for their lives--their happiness. That is real piety. She makes allowances. She's slow to condemn." "You don't have to tell me that loose standards prevail." Sue did not seem to hear. "All these years you've talked to me about the home--the home with a capital H. Your home--which you'd 'kept together'--the American home--wave the flag! And I've always believed that you meant what you said. But today I understand your real attitude. First, because you weren't willing to give that poor cornered girl a chance at one. You intruded into her room and deliberately drove her away." "She ran away once from a good home with a good man." She paid Farvel the compliment unconsciously--and unintentionally. "Then consider my case,"--it was as if Sue were speaking to herself. "Why haven't you given me a chance? For all these years, if a man looked cross-eyed at me, was he ever asked to call on us?" "Such nonsense!" "If he did, somehow or other there was trouble. You would cry, and say I didn't love you--or you pretended to find something wrong with him, and he didn't come again. And once--once I remember that you claimed that you were ill--though I think I guessed that you weren't--and away we went for a change of air. Oh, peace at any price!" Mrs. Milo grew scarlet. "Ha!" she scoffed. "So _I'm_ to blame for your not being married! I've stood in your way!" "Just think how you've acted today--the way you acted over this dress--you can't bear to see me look well? Why?--Yes, you've stood in my way from the very first."