"A doctor told Ma once that when a man drank, as Alfie did, he couldn't stop right off short, without affecting his heart," said Mary Lou, gently.
"All right, let it affect his heart then!" said the twenty-year-old Freda hardily. Ma herself thought this disgustingly cold-blooded; she said it did not seem refined for a woman to admit that her husband had his failings, and Mary Lou said frankly that it was easy enough to see where THAT marriage would end, but Susan read more truly the little bride's flashing blue eyes and the sudden scarlet in her cheeks, and she won Freda's undying loyalty by a surreptitious pressure of her fingers.