"’Tis about Pierre, your good-for-nothing brother." "What about him?" asked Marcel. Blood was blood after all and she resented Longville’s superior tone. "Since Margot died he has had a rough time of it," mused the Captain, "caring for the boy and shifting for himself. It has been hard for Pierre." "You want him and Tom—here?" Marcel turned now, the greasy water dripping from her red hands. She had small use for her brother, but her heart yearned over the motherless Tom. "God forbid," ejaculated Longville, "but a man must pity such a life as Pierre’s." "Pierre takes his pleasures," sighed Marcel, "as all can testify." "You mean that a man should have no pleasure?" snapped the Captain. "You women are devilish hard." "I meant no wrong. ’Tis no business of mine." "’Tis the business of all women to marry off the odds and ends"; and now Longville was ready. He launched out with a clear statement of Jo Morey’s finances and the absolute necessity of male control of the same. Marcel listened and waited. "Mam’selle Jo Morey must marry," Longville continued. He had his pipe lighted and between long puffs blinked luxuriously as he outlined the future. "She has too much money for a woman and—there is Pierre!" "Mam’selle Jo and Pierre!" Almost Marcel laughed. "But Mam’selle is so homely and Pierre, being the handsome man he is, detests an ugly woman." "What matters? Once married, the good law of the land gives the wife’s money to her master. ’Tis a righteous law. And Pierre has a way with women that breaks them or kills them—generally both!" This was meant jocosely, but Marcel gave a shudder as she bent again over the steaming suds. "But Mam’selle with money," she murmured more to herself than to Longville. "Will Mam’selle sell herself?" This almost staggered Longville. He took his pipe from his lips and stared at the back of the drudge near him. Then he spoke slowly, wonderingly: "Will a woman marry? What mean you? All women will sell their souls for a man. Mam’selle, being ugly, must buy one. Besides——" And here Longville paused to impress his next words. "Besides, you remember Langley?" For a moment Marcel did not; so much had come and gone since Langley’s time. Then she recalled the flurry his going with one of the summer people had caused, and she nodded. "You know Langley walked and talked with Mam’selle before that red and white woman from the States caught him up in her petticoat and carried him off?" It began to come back to Marcel now. Again she nodded indifferently. "And some months after," Longville was whispering as if he feared the cat purring under the stove would hear, "some months later, what happened then." Marcel rummaged in her litter of bleak memories. "Oh! Cecile died!" She brought forth triumphantly. "Cecile died, yes! And Mam’selle went away. And what for?" The whispered words struck Marcel’s dull brain like sharp strokes. "I do not know," she faltered.