"So _that's_ where my money has been going!" cried Madam. "They've succeeded in working me through you, have they? Just as they succeeded in working Ranny through Quinby Graham."
"No--no, grandmother! Please listen! They have never asked me for a penny. But when I found out the terrible time they'd been having, the children sick all summer and Cass down with typhoid--why, if it hadn't been for Quin----"
"So they sponged on him too, did they? He's a bigger fool than I gave him credit for being."
"But they _didn't_ sponge. He is Cass's best friend, and he was glad to help. He and Rose did all the nursing themselves."
"Yes, I heard about it. In the house alone for six weeks. That doesn't speak very well for her reputation."
"Grandmother! You've no right to say that! Rose may talk recklessly and do foolish things, but she wouldn't do anything wrong for the world."
"Well, if she did, she wouldn't be the first member of her family to compromise a man so that he had to marry her."
"What do you mean?" demanded Eleanor, quivering with indignation.
"That's neither here nor there," said Madam. "There's enough rottenness in the present without raking up the past. But one thing is certain: if they ask you for money again----"
"Not in so many words, perhaps, but they worked on your sympathies. I know them! As for Claude Martel, he would want nothing better than have you traveling around in some Punch and Judy show. But I scotched that nonsense once and for all. As for their bleeding you for money,"--she rose and crushed the check in her hand,--"I guess I know a way to stop that."
Eleanor rose too, and faced her. She was very pale now, her anger having reached a white heat.
"My mother's people may be poor," she said deliberately, "but they aren't beggars, and at least they've come by what they have honestly."
It was Madam's turn to flinch. A certain famous law-suit in the history of Bartlett & Bangs had brought out some startling testimony, and the subject was one to which reference was never allowed in Madam's presence. At Eleanor's words the whirlwind of her wrath let loose. Her words hurtled like flying missiles in a cyclone. She lashed herself into a fury, coming back to Eleanor again and again as the cause of all her trouble.