Madam Bowker smiled grimly at this shrewd analysis.  “I want to see you married and properly settled in life.  I want to end this disgrace.  I want to save you from becoming ridiculous and contemptible—­an object of laughter and of pity.”

“You want to see me married to some man I dislike and should soon hate.”

“I want to see you married,” retorted the old lady.  “I can’t be held responsible for your electing to hate whatever is good for you.  And I came to tell you that my patience is about exhausted.  If you are not engaged by the end of this season, I wash my hands of you.  I have been spending a great deal of money in the effort to establish you.  You are a miserable failure socially.  You attach only worthless men.  You drive away the serious men.”

“Stupid, you mean.”

“I mean serious—­the men looking for wives.  Men who have something and have a right to aspire to the hand of my grandchild.  The only men who have a right to take the time of an unmarried woman.  You either cannot, or will not, exert yourself to please.  You avoid young girls and young men.  You waste your life with people already settled.  You have taken on the full airs and speech of a married woman, in advance of having a husband—­and that is folly bordering on insanity.  You have discarded everything that men—­marrying men—­the right sort of men—­demand in maidenhood.  I repeat, you are a miserable failure.”

“A miserable failure,” echoed Margaret, staring dismally into the glass.

“And I repeat,” continued the old lady, somewhat less harshly, though not less resolutely, “this season ends it.  You must marry or I’ll stop your allowance.  You’ll have to look to your mother for your dresses and hats and gee-gaws.  When I think of the thousands of dollars I’ve wasted on you—­It’s cheating—­it’s cheating!  You have been stealing from me!” Madam Bowker’s tone was almost unladylike; her ebon staff was flourishing threateningly.

Margaret started up.  “I warned you at the outset!” she cried.  “I took nothing from you that you didn’t force on me.  And now, when you’ve made dress, and all that, a necessity for me, you are going to snatch it away!”

“Giving you money for dress is wasting it,” cried the old lady.  “What is dress for?  Pray why, do you imagine, have I provided you with three and four dozen expensive dresses a year and hats and lingerie and everything in proportion?  Just to gratify your vanity?  No, indeed!  To enable you to get a husband, one able to provide for you as befits your station.  And because I have been generous with you, because I have spared no expense in keeping you up to your station, in giving you opportunity, you turn on me and revile me!”