The Angry Wife by Pearl S. Buck Page B

over John, too. John was afraid all the time. Poor old John! “What does Pierce say?” she inquired.
    Lucinda shrugged. “Oh Pierce—”
    “He can’t approve?” Molly cried.
    “Oh, he doesn’t approve,” Lucinda said impatiently, “but after all, Tom is his brother—and when you come right down to it, men are all the same about that one thing, Molly.”
    Molly laughed again, her eyes shining. She put out her soft plump white hand on Lucinda’s slender one. “Honey if I were you, I just wouldn’t pay any mind to it. I’d just live as though the whole thing was beneath my notice. That’s the way ladies have always done, you know, and it’s the best way. My own mother used to say that we had to realize men have a lower nature and the less it was noticed, the better.”
    Lucinda drew her hand away gently. “I do believe you’re right, Molly,” she said with gratitude. “So long as you don’t think harm could come of it … It isn’t like it was before the war, you know. I get to worrying for fear Bettina would be uppity.”
    “I wouldn’t notice anything,” Molly said smoothly. “If she gets uppity I would just send her away like a servant. There’s that good thing out of the war—you can send ’em away.”
    “You could sell them before,” Lucinda reminded her. “I wouldn’t like to lose Georgia, and if Bettina went, Georgia would probably want to go, too. We’d lose two good house girls without getting a penny for them, though Papa could have sold them for a thousand dollars apiece. I know, because Mama scolded him so, when we didn’t need them. It isn’t fair, do you think, Molly? I mean, for that poor white in Washington just to write a few lines and say that your property isn’t your property!”
    “I’m glad he was killed,” Molly said simply.
    They rose, feeling, that everything had been said and decided, and went downstairs, their arms about one another like girls.
    Lucinda kissed Molly when she went away. “You have certainly made me feel better,” she said. “I’m going home and I’m not going to speak of it again, not to Pierce or anybody.”
    “I’m sure that’s best, honey,” Molly replied.
    She looked at Lucinda a moment and then laughed. “Why do you stay way out here in the country, honey? We’re goin’ to Wheeling, John and me.”
    Lucinda looked at her, speechless. “Why, Molly, leave your own house?”
    Molly’s eyes flitted restlessly about the room. “I feel to change. I’d like to travel. I tell John he’s just got to get rich. Honey, he’s goin’ into the railroad.”
    “Railroad!” Lucinda cried. She thought of the smoking, puffing, bell-topped little engine that ran choking and spluttering westward from Baltimore. “I don’t see how that’ll make him rich,” she declared.
    “Railroads are goin’ to grow,” Molly said firmly. “We’ve borrowed money and bought stock—”
    Lucinda felt a jealous envy of possible riches. She hid it behind her pretty smile.
    “I certainly do hope you will get what you want, Molly dear,” she said. She rose as she spoke and brushed Molly’s red cheek with the palm of her hand. “Of course, I have the boys. Pierce would kill me if I didn’t let them be brought up at Malvern—and I’ve a girl here under my belt.”
    She pressed her wrist. A flicker in Molly’s eyes made her suddenly smile. “Goodbye, honey!” she said and tripped away.
    So meditating, Lucinda rode home through the mild evening air. An instinctive resolution was growing within her. She would say nothing at all about Bettina, not to Pierce, not to Tom, and not even to Bettina herself. She would ignore the whole matter, as generations of women before her had ignored the doings of their men. After all, Tom was only a brother-in-law. Sooner or later he might even be leaving Malvern. There was no use upsetting her house over Tom. Besides, she wanted to think about railroads. Why should Molly MacBain be rich?
    When her horse ambled into