"Bad?" echoed Bessie. "That depends on how you look at it."
"Bankruptcy? To owe more than we can pay? I should have thought that there
was only one way of looking at it."
Bessie swung round to her mother. "You haven't told Deda!" she cried
accusingly. "She hasn't told you! Mama is going to marry Mr. Boult,
Deleah."
"To _marry_ him!" Deleah cried, as if she might have cried "to _murder_
him!" and sprang from her chair to stand before her mother. "Mama! Mama!"
Mrs. Day, sitting huddled in her chair as if she lacked the spirit to hold
herself upright, and looking all at once a dozen years older, shook a
desponding head. "I can't!" she said. "I don't think I _can_ do it."
"Well, you've got the chance," Bessie said, hardly. "And it's a good one.
Good for all of us. He's rich. He has sat here bragging of his money to
me--and that he might spend a couple of thousand a year if he liked. As if
I cared! But if it's going to be yours, mama--two thousand a year--I do
care. I do!"
"But we can't think only of ourselves, Bessie," Deleah, horrified, put in.
"We've got to think of mama. She could never endure it."
"She should have thought of that before," Bessie said. "Mama should not
have been so sly and underhand--"
"Bessie! Bessie! You can't mean what you say.
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