“They are sweet little houses!” she said defiantly.
“Vi, let’s have dinner together! I’ll telephone to Marian.”
“Well—” said Violet. “I should like it awfully. I get so lonely, sometimes!”
She had never talked like this before. She had never looked like this before.
“I’ll get a taxi,” said Leonard, “and we’ll go up to Claremont. I only ask you not to come across with the usual family line about its being an extravagance.”
“I wasn’t going to,” said Violet. They[Pg 490] had come out into the street now, where a wan daylight lingered. “I’ve been thinking about that a lot—about being extravagant. I’ve been—just afraid. I could do ever so many things; but I’ve been afraid to get the thing I want to-day, because then I might not be able to get something else to-morrow.”
“That’s thrift, my dear girl—keeping your cake until you haven’t any teeth to eat it with.”
“Well, I—there’s a cab, Leonard.”
He hailed it, and the driver slid up to the curb. Wilder opened the door and took Violet’s arm, to help her in. Somehow it was such a young sort of arm, firm and sturdy enough, but very slender—too slender. She herself was altogether too slender and too young. It worried him.
“I’m going to stop being afraid,” she said. “I’m going to trust life.”