She was absolutely incomprehensible to him; but she could read him through and through, and the better she knew him, the greater grew her contempt.
“It was only a joke,” she said.
“Is that your idea of a joke? It’s a pretty dangerous one.”
She shook her head.
“No, it isn’t. I knew you were a nice boy. I knew I could trust you. I’ll always remember you, Tommy—always. You’re the nicest—”
“What do you propose to tell your parents? They’ll write to you here, or they may come.”
“They won’t find me. I’ll leave to-morrow morning. Mr. Syles told me of a nice boarding house. You’ll go back to your uncle. He’ll never know about it, and we’ll both forget the whole thing, won’t we?”
They went up into her room, and they argued all afternoon. Tommy tried to show her the enormity of her conduct, but she insisted upon regarding it as an escapade. She emphasized her sixteen years. She behaved with an airy childishness which she had never shown before, and which he knew to be false.
He had played the part she had determined he should play, and there was an end to him. Her modest little pocketbook was well stuffed with his money. She was in the city where she wished to be.
Sixteen? Esther sixteen? Preposterous idea! She was as old as the earth.