orld. I can't think of you as my daughter--you are too brazen.
You're the worst because you're calculating. You know what you're doing,
and you are deliberate in your method of doing it. You're evil-minded.
You know exactly what you want and you set out deliberately to get it.
You have done it in this case. You started out to get this man and you
have succeeded in doing it. You have no sense of shame, no pride, no
honesty, no honor, no respect for me or anyone else. You do not love
this man. You know you don't. If you did you would never degrade him and
yourself and me as you have done. You've simply indulged in another vile
relationship because you wanted to, and now when you're caught you
brazen it out. You're evil, Carlotta. You're as low as a woman can be,
even if you are my daughter."

"It isn't true," said Carlotta. "You're just talking to hear yourself
talk."

"It is true and you know it," reproved her mother. "You talk about
Norman. He never did a thing worse in his life than you have done. He
may be a gambler and immoral and inconsiderate and selfish. What are
you? Can you stand there and tell me you're any better? Pah! If you only
had a sense of shame something could be done for you, but you haven't
any. You're just vile, that's all."

"How you talk, ma," she observed, calmly; "how you carry on, and that on
a mere suspicion. You didn't see me. I might have been in there but you
didn't see me and I wasn't. You're making a storm just because you want
to. I like Mr. Witla. I think he's very nice, but I'm not interested in
him and I haven't done anything to harm him. You can turn him out if you
want to. That's none of my affairs. You're simply raging about as usual
without any facts to go upon."

Carlotta stared at her mother, thinking. She was not greatly disturbed.
It was pretty bad, no doubt of that, but she was not thinking so much of
that as of the folly of being found out. Her mother knew for certain,
though she would not admit to her that she knew. Now all this fine
summer romance would end--the pleasant convenience of it, anyhow. Eugene
would be put to the trouble of moving. Her mother might say something
disagreeable to him. Besides, she knew she was better than Norman
because she did not associate with the same evil type of people. She was
not coarse, she was not thick-witted, she was not cruel, she was not a
user of vile language or an expresser of vile ideas, and Norman was at
times. She might lie