Then he learned that Aunt Bessie was upset if Edith was a few minutes late in getting home, and that she would be still more painfully upset if Edith should even suggest going out in the evening.
“She’s alone all day, you see,” the girl explained, “and it does seem selfish to go out again.”
“Oh, very selfish!” Hardy interrupted. “And what about Saturday afternoon and Sunday?”
“Well, you see, Joe, she’s alone all week, and—and she hasn’t any one but me. Anyhow, Joe, we see each other every day in the office, and we can have lunch together, can’t we?”
He said nothing more just then, for he could see that Edith was unhappy and anxious. For those first few days even having lunch with her was almost too good to be true; but the day when Edith said they must wait, and Hardy said he wouldn’t, was Monday, after he had spent a horrible Sunday without a glimpse of her.
“No,” he said again. “We can’t go on like this. I can’t, anyhow.”
Again she pointed out that they saw each other every day in the office, and could have lunch together. She added that they had only been engaged five days.
“I know,” said he. “It would be all right if I could see you, but you won’t let me come to your house, and you won’t go out with me.”
“But we see each other—”
“Yes, and we can have lunch together, for the next ten years, I suppose!” Hardy interrupted.