“I didn’t ask her to,” Crabbe Osborne said, flushing deeper. “I admit she offered ’em, but I was arguing about it with her when Mr. Dodge got there. Anyhow, the gas man wouldn’t take ’em.”
“Oh, he should have!” Lily moaned. “Then we wouldn’t have all this to go through. We’d have been out of it all. We’d have been together for always!”
“Would you?” her mother asked, with a hard laugh. “Just how would you have obtained a marriage license, since there weren’t enough funds for gasoline?”
“I had that all thought out,” the young man replied. “We were going to stop and get married at Saline. I’ve got a cousin living in Saline, and I could have borrowed as much as we needed from him. He’d have trusted me, because he knows I’d pay him back.”
“And would you?” Mrs. Dodge inquired.
This brought a protest from both of the afflicted lovers. Young Mr. Osborne said, “Oh, look here, Mrs. Dodge,” and swallowed, but Lily made a real outcry. She sprang up, facing her mother angrily.
“Shame!” she cried. “You taunt him with his poverty! Has he ever pretended for one moment to be a rich man? If he had, there might be some point to your taunts, but you know he hasn’t. From the very first I defy you to say he hasn’t been absolutely frank about it! I do, Mamma! I defy you to say so!”
“Sit down,” said her mother.
“ ‘Sit down?’ I won’t, Mamma; I won’t sit down! Indeed, I won’t, and you haven’t any right to make me! You and Papa order me to do this; you order me to do that; you order me to do everything; but the time’s past when I obeyed you like a Myrmidon. I don’t trust your wisdom any more, Mamma; nor Papa’s, either—not since you’ve tried to keep me an absolute prisoner and won’t let Crabbe even step inside the yard!”
“ ‘Inside the yard?’ ” Mrs. Dodge said. “It strikes me he’s rather farther than that.” She turned upon the perplexed young man. “How many times do you usually have to be requested to leave a house?”