Page:Stella Dallas, a novel (IA stelladallasnove00prou).pdf/275

Rh you were to have worked and slaved for that little kid for seventeen years, and skimped and saved for her all that time, and given her everything under the sun you thought would make her happy—oh, that was an awfully foolish way to treat a child you hoped would trot off and leave you the first chance she got."

"What nonsense," Stella scorned. "Why, I didn't even want you before you were born. I didn't like babies."

"Yes, so you've told me before," laughed Laurel, "and you don't want me now, do you? Poor thing! But you've got to have me, just as before I was born. You've got to have me. You see we happen to belong to each other, mother."

"But you belong to your father, too."

Laurel puckered up her brow, thoughtfully, mopping the plate which she held half in the water, half out, round and round slowly with her dishcloth.

"Yes," she acknowledged, "I suppose I do belong to father, too, but it's different. I'm fond of father. I love to be with him. We always have wonderful times, but father and I have never been through anything long and hard and disagreeable. We've always had just fun together. Somehow, having fun together doesn't make two people feel as if they belonged the way suffering together does. Besides, father doesn't need me the way you do."

"Pshaw! I don't need you! I get along all right alone."

"So did I last summer, those two days when you left me. I got along all right alone, too. Nobody to wash dishes with, nobody to talk with, nor to eat