Latham slept late the next morning, and at eleven o'clock had only
finished looking over her mail without yet touching her breakfast, when,
without waiting for an answer to her knock, Sylvia entered. Her mother
looked up in some surprise, for she did not encourage running in and out
at all hours, or any of the usual intimacies between a mother and grown
daughter who are companions. In fact she did not even ask Sylvia to sit
down, or if she was ill, though her pallor was very apparent, but merely
raised questioning eyebrows, saying, "What is it?" as she turned her
attention to some legal-looking documents in her lace-decked lap.
Chilled to the heart Sylvia seated herself in a low chair by her mother,
so that she need not raise her voice, and twisting her hands nervously,
told what had happened in as few words as possible, much as if she had
repeated them over and over until they were learned like a lesson.
Mrs. Latham's cold gray eyes at first snapped viciously, and then grew
big with wonder as Sylvia ended by saying, "I should never have spoken of
this to any one, and tried to forget, but you would think it strange that
Mr. Bell should stop coming here--and--"
"Think it strange?" said Mrs. Latham, speaking harshly and rapidly, a
thing she rarely did. "Do you know what I think of you? That you are the
most absolute little fool I ever imagined. You not only refuse a man who
could make your social position secure, but rant and get into tantrums
over the compliment he pays you, and call it an 'insult,' exactly as your
canting grandmother Latham might have done.
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