Page:Bobbie, General Manager (1913).djvu/264

254 talking to the cheap rhinestone comb in the back of her head.

"I've got something to say to you," I said, "and I want you to listen. I've been wanting to talk to you ever since you came to this house, and now I'm going to do it. You say Oliver finds fault with you, and let me tell you I don't blame him a bit. He certainly has reason to. Why, I never have run across a young lady who knew so little about things as you do. You don't know how to do anything properly. Your clothes are atrocious, and your manners—your self-assured manners here in my house are inexcusable. You're only a young girl of nineteen years who never has had any experience nor seen anything of the world. I don't blame you, understand. It isn't your fault that everything you do or say or wear makes us all blush with shame; but it does—it does, Madge. Why, I had to give up inviting some people here to dinner because I was afraid of the breaks and the horrible remarks you might make before my friends. Edith wouldn't have you in her house. That's the bald truth of it, my dear. You might as well know how we feel. It may sound cruel and hard, and I wouldn't say these things to Oliver's wife if she had come here modest, unpretentious, and anxious to learn; but she didn't, I should say she didn't! The worst ignorance in the world is that which parades itself up and down thinking itself very grand and elegant while all the lookers-on are laughing up their sleeves. That's what you've been doing, Madge." I stopped a moment to give the poor girl a chance to say something.

"Go away—go away—go away!" she burst out