That talk, stormy and utterly incomprehensible, filled the child
with a growing sense of terror. Accusations, quick pleadings, angry
retorts, attempts at explanation, all formed a dreadful muttering
background out of which shot, like sharp streaks of lightning,
occasional clearly-caught phrases: "Charlie White came home dead
drunk, I tell you--" "--You know I'm mad about you, Helen, or I
wouldn't--" "--Oh, don't you touch me!"
To Missy, trapped and shaking with panic, the storm seemed to have
raged hours before she detected a third voice, old Mrs. Greenleaf s,
which cut calm and controlled across the area of passion.
"You'd better go out a little while, Porter, and let me talk to
her."
Then another interminable stretch of turmoil, this all the more
terrifying because less violent.
"Oh, mother-I can't--" Anger, spent, had given way to broken
sobbing.
"I understand how you feel, dear. But you'll--"
"I despise him!"
"I understand, dear. All girls get frightened and--"
"But it isn't that, mother. I don't love him. I can't go on. Won't
you, this minute, tell him--tell everybody--?"
"Darling, don't you realize I can't?" Missy had never before heard
old Mrs.
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