“That wouldn’t be much fun,” she answered, “because I suppose the truth is they won’t be sorry to have you out of the way.”
“I suppose not,” he said, and shut the door behind him. He could not truthfully say that his mother had been much of a comfort. He had suddenly thought that he would go down to the first floor and get Lily Parret to go to the theater with him. He and she had the warm friendship for each other of two handsome, healthy young people of opposite sexes who might have everything to give each other except time. She was perhaps ten years older than he, extremely handsome, with dimples and dark red hair and blue eyes. She had a large practice among the poor, and might have made a conspicuous success of her profession if it had not been for her intense and too widely diffused interest. She wanted to strike a blow at every abuse that came to her attention, and as, in the course of her work, a great many turned up, she was always striking blows and never following them up. She went through life in a series of springs, each one in a different direction; but the motion of her attack was as splendid as that of a tiger. Often she was successful, and always she enjoyed herself.
When she answered Pete’s ring, and he looked up at her magnificent height, her dimples appeared in welcome. She really was glad to see him.
“Come out and dine with me, Lily, and go to the theater.”
“Come to a meeting at Cooper Union on capital punishment. I’m going to speak, and I’m going to be very good.”
“No, Lily; I want to explain to you what a pitiable sex you belong to. You have no character, no will—”
She shook her head, laughing.
“You are a personal lot, you young men,” she said. “You change your mind about women every day, according to how one of them treats you.”
“They don’t amount to a row of pins, Lily.”
“Certainly some men select that kind, Pete.”