Margaret was thinking how she could account for it, when Mrs. Rushmore went on.
'I'll have a specialist out this afternoon to look at you,' she said. 'You're not sane. I wonder who the best man is.'
The last sentence was spoken in an undertone of reflection.
'Nonsense!' exclaimed Margaret emphatically, and adding to the emphasis by taking off her hat and throwing her head back, shaking it a little as if she wished her hair were down.
Mrs. Rushmore turned upon her with the moral dignity of five generations of Puritan ancestors.
'Do you mean to say that after all I've done to get you this money, you are going to give me up to be an actress?' she demanded with scorn. 'That you're going to give up your best friends, and your position as a lady, and the chance of making a respectable marriage, not to mention your immortal soul, just for the pleasure of showing yourself every night half-dressed to every commercial traveller in Europe? It's disgraceful. I don't care what you say. You're insane. You shan't do it!'
At this view of the case Margaret's forehead flushed a little.
'You talk as if I were going to be a music-hall singer,' she said.
'That's where you'll end!' retorted Mrs. Rushmore, without the slightest regard for facts. 'That's where they all end! There, or in the divorce courts--or both! It's the same thing!' she concluded triumphantly.
'I never heard a divorce court compared to a music-hall,' observed Margaret.
'You know exactly what I mean,' answered Mrs. Rushmore angrily. 'Don't take me up at every word! Contradicting isn't reasoning. Anybody can contradict.'
'And besides,' continued Margaret, growing cooler as the other grew warm, 'one cannot be divorced till one has been married.'
'Oh, you'll marry soon enough!' cried Mrs. Rushmore, infuriated by her calm. 'You'll marry an adventurer with dyed moustaches and a sham title, who'll steal your money and beat you! And though I am your dear mother's best friend, Margaret, I'm bound to say that it will serve you right. It's useless to deny it. It will serve you right.'
'It would certainly serve me right if I married the individual with the dyed moustaches,' said Margaret, smiling in spite of herself.
'I'm glad you agree with me at last. It shows that you're not so perfectly mad as you seemed. If you had gone on as you were talking at first I should certainly have had a mad doctor to examine you. As it is, I don't believe you're fit to have all that money. You mean well, I daresay. But you have no sense. None at all.'