“Yes, Robert Gordon!” his mother returned grimly.  “And let me tell you, Richard Graham, that if you do not settle that man he will make you the laughing stock and the scandal of everybody.  The way he talks of Margaret is disgusting.”

Dicky’s face became suddenly stern and set.

“He didn’t exhibit his lack of good taste the first time he came over to my table in the dining room,” my mother-in-law went on.  “But the second time he sat down with me he began to talk of Margaret in the most fulsome, extravagant manner.  From that time his sole topic of conversation was Margaret, the wonderful woman she had grown into, the wonderful attraction she has for him.  You would have thought him a man who had discovered his lost sweetheart after years of wandering.  Imagine the lack of decency and good taste the man must have to say such things to me, the mother of Margaret’s husband!”

“Is that all you have to say, mother?” he asked.

She looked at him in amazement.

“Are you lost to all decency that you do not resent such extravagant praise and admiration of your wife from the lips of another man?” she demanded, and then in the same breath went on rapidly: 

“Richard, you are perfectly hopeless!  The man may have been in love with Margaret’s mother, I do not doubt that he was, but have you never heard of such men falling in love with the daughters of the women they once loved hopelessly?”

“Don’t make the poor man out a potential Mormon, mother!” Dicky jibed.

“Jeer at your old mother if you wish, Richard,” his mother went on icily, “but let me tell you that Mr. Gordon is madly in love with Margaret and if you do not look out you will have a scandal on your hands.”

“You are going a bit too far in your excitement, mother,” Dicky said sternly.  “You may not realize it, but you are insinuating that there might be a possible chance of Madge’s returning the man’s admiration.”

“I am not insinuating anything,” his mother returned, white-lipped with anger, “but I certainly think Margaret owes both you and me an explanation of the untruth she told us at the supper table the night you introduced Mr. Gordon to us.”

I sprang to my feet with my cheeks afire.

“Mother Graham, I have listened to you with respect as long as I can,” I exclaimed.  “Whatever else you have to say to my husband about me you can say in my absence.  If he at any time wishes an explanation of any action of mine he has only to ask me for it.”

White with rage I dashed out of the room, up the stairs and into my own room, locking the door behind me.  In a few minutes Dicky’s step came swiftly up the stairs; his knock sounded on my door.

“Madge, let me in,” he commanded, but the note of tenderness in his voice was the influence that hurried my fingers in the turning of the key.

As I opened the door he strode in past me, closed and locked the door again, and, turning, caught me in his arms.