Milla laughed, and when he asked why, she told him she'd never heard him talk so much “at one stretch.” “I guess that speech got you kind of wound up,” she said. “Let's talk about something different.”
“I just soon,” he agreed. And so they walked on in silence, which seemed to suit Milla. She hung weightily upon his arm, and they dawdled, drifting from one side of the pavement to the other as they slowly advanced. Albert and Sadie, ahead of them, called “good-night” from a corner, before turning down the side street where Sadie lived; and then, presently, Ramsey and Milla were at the latter's gate. He went in with her, halting at the front steps.
“Well, g'night, Milla,” he said. “Want to go out walking to-morrow night? Albert and Sadie are.”
“I can't to-morrow night,” she told him with obvious regret. “Isn't it the worst luck! I got an aunt comin' to visit from Chicago, and she's crazy about playing 'Five Hundred,' and Mama and Papa said I haf to stay in to make four to play it. She's liable to be here three or four days, and I guess I got to be around home pretty much all the time she's here. It's the worst luck!”
He was doleful, but ventured to be literary. “Well, what can't be helped must be endured. I'll come around when she's gone.”
He moved as if to depart, but she still retained his arm and did not prepare to relinquish it.
“Well—” he said.
“Well what, Ramsey?”
“Well—g'night.”
She glanced up at the dark front of the house. “I guess the family's gone to bed,” she said, absently.