"Poor Sam! And I suppose, when he calls, you'll come down as if you'd put on any old thing and didn't care whether he came or not. And you'll have primped for an hour—and he, too—shaving and combing and trying different ties."
Susan sparkled at the idea of a young man, and such a young man, taking trouble for her. Ruth, pale, kept her eyes down and her lips compressed. She was picturing the gallant appearance the young Sophomore from Yale, away off in the gorgeous fashionable East, would make as he came in at that gate yonder and up the walk and seated himself on the veranda—with Susan! Evidently her mother had failed; Susan was not to be taken away.
When Warham departed down the walk Ruth rose; she could not bear being alone with her triumphant rival—triumphant because unconscious. She knew that to get Sam to herself all she would have to do would be to hint to Susan, the generous, what she wanted. But pride forbade that. As her hand was on the knob of the screen door, Susan said: "Why don't you like Sam?"
"Oh, I think he's stuck-up. He's been spoiled in the East."
"Why, I don't see any sign of it."
"You were too flattered by his talking to you," said Ruth, with a sweet-sour little laugh—an asp of a sneer hid in a basket of flowers.
Susan felt the sting; but, seeing only the flowers, did not dream whence it had come. "It was nice, wasn't it?" said she, gayly. "Maybe you're right about him, but I can't help liking him. You must admit he's handsome."
"He has a bad look in his eyes," replied Ruth. Such rage against Susan was swelling within her that it seemed to her she would faint if she did not release at least part of it. "You want to look out for him, Susie," said she, calmly and evenly. "You don't want to take what he says seriously."
"Of course not," said Susan, quite honestly, though she, no more than the next human being, could avoid taking seriously whatever was pleasantly flattering.
"He'd never think of marrying you." Ruth trembled before and after delivering this venomous shaft.