Her mother was as rigid as the old-fashioned straight-back chair in which she sat. The blood burned brightly in the center of each of her white cheeks, but her voice was distinctly softer as she said: "You will go back. But we accept nothing from anybody."
Courtney hung her head. "Of course not," she said, hurried and confused. "I spoke on impulse."
"You’d better sit in a chair," said Mrs. Benedict. "You are rumpling your dress."
But Courtney was not hurt. She had an instinct why her mother wished her to sit at a distance. "Very well, mother," said she meekly, and obeyed.
After a pause Mrs. Benedict spoke: "I was not surprised when you told me. I suppose there is not one woman in ten thousand who doesn’t at least once in the first five years of her married life resolve to leave her husband."
"But it’s different with me. I must have something—and I have nothing."
"That house—those prim, dressed-up looking grounds—they’ve always oppressed me. And I hate them—now that—" She checked herself. How futile to relate and to rail. "As for Winchie, he’s not enough."
Courtney gave her mother a horrified look.
"You will do your duty as a wife, and the children will be your reward."
Courtney could not discuss this; discussion would be both useless and painful. "There may be some women who could be content with looking after a house and the wants of children," said she. "But I’m not one of them, and I never saw or heard of a worth-while woman who was. How am I to spend the time? I’m like you—I don’t care for running about doing inane things. I can’t just read and read, with no purpose, no sympathy. It seems to me I could do almost anything with love—almost nothing without it.... Brought up and educated like a man, and then condemned to the old-fashioned life for women—a life no man would endure!"
Her mother was looking out through the window, a strange expression about her stern mouth—the expression of one who, old and in a far, cold land, thinks of home and youth when the sun warmed the blood and the heart.
"What shall I do if I go back?" repeated Courtney. "But why ask that? I’ve simply got to go back. As you say, there’s no place else for me." A flush of shame overspread her cheeks. "Oh, it’s so degrading!"