"Oh, goodness!" Alice lamented. "What IS it all about?"

"It's about this," said Mrs. Adams, swallowing. "You and Walter
are a new generation and you ought to have the same as the rest
of the new generation get. Poor Walter--asking you to go to the
movies and a Chinese restaurant: the best he had to offer! Don't
you suppose _I_ see how the poor boy is deteriorating? Don't you
suppose I know what YOU have to go through, Alice? And when I
think of that man upstairs----" The agitated voice grew louder.
"When I think of him and know that nothing in the world but his
STUBBORNNESS keeps my children from having all they want and what
they OUGHT to have, do you suppose I'm going to hold myself bound
to keep to the absolute letter of a silly promise he got from me
by behaving like a crazy man? I can't! I can't do it! No
mother could sit by and see him lock up a horn of plenty like
that in his closet when the children were starving!"

"Oh, goodness, goodness me!" Alice protested. "We aren't
precisely 'starving,' are we?"

Mrs. Adams began to weep. "It's just the same. Didn't I see
how flushed and pretty you looked, this afternoon, after you'd
been walking with this young man that's come here? Do you
suppose he'd LOOK at a girl like Mildred Palmer if you had what
you ought to have? Do you suppose he'd be going into business
with her father if YOUR father----"

"Good heavens, mama; you're worse than Walter: I just barely know
the man! DON'T be so absurd!"