"I haven't any," she said, with a frank laugh. "The other ladies have the argument. I only came to make one more." Then modestly, "But still,--I don't know,--I may be wrong--of course you know so much better about--oh, everything--than I do, but it seems to me that it does concern me more even than it does grandma. Of course I'm not a mother--but I hope sometime I may be--I'd hate awfully to think I never should!" The Senator bowed respectfully to her womanhood, with an indulgent smile and a significant wave of the hand toward the elder ladies. The gesture said, "You see? There is the whole story in a nutshell! This is woman's sphere."
"And then," continued Bess with a flash of her bright eyes, "I tell you I wouldn't want any old law interfering with my child and giving anybody the right to take it away from me! I'd fight like a wild-cat! Well,--that's what they did to Margaret."
"Who is Margaret?" asked the Senator, finding this more interesting than prosaic arguments.
"Oh, I thought you knew about Margaret. Why,--"
"It is the case I was referring to a moment ago, Senator," broke in Mrs. Greuze, a little impatiently. "A case in point exactly. I will repeat--"
"One moment," blandly interposed the gentleman. "Now who is Margaret, my dear?"
"Why, Margaret is our friend--grandma's and mine--the one whose husband willed her baby away from her. I don't know why, I'm sure--nobody knows--but it was in the will and so it had to stand, the judge said, because that was the law. You must have heard of it."
"No--o. There are so many things to hear, you know. But it interests me. I should like to see your friend. Perhaps you will bring her here to talk with me some day. Her story as you tell it seems to have some bearing on this bill."
Bess looked around at her grandmother. This was getting in rather deep for one who had come only as "filling."
"Certainly," said that lady, with affability and equal promptness, "you can go over some day. _And I will go with you._"
At this, attention was bestowed upon the older ladies, and the conference proceeded.
In relating this occurrence to John Harcourt that night Mrs. Pennybacker wound up by saying, with a suggestive motion of the head toward the two bright faces opposite them, "I hardly think that elderly, or even middle-aged, arguments are the thing needed over there! Do you?"