“Well, as long ’s you stay at home it’ll all come on you. You ain’t able to carry sech a load.”
“I’ll have to.”
“Demaris, you’ll just have to leave.”
“What!” said the girl. She turned to look at him in a startled way. “Leave home? I couldn’t think of doin’ that.”
He leaned toward her and put his arm around her, trembling strongly. “Not even to come to my home, Demaris? I want you, dear; an’ I won’t let you kill yourself workin’, either. I ain’t rich, but I’m well enough off to give you a comfortable home an’ some one to do your work for you.”
There was a deep silence. Each felt the full beating of the other’s heart. There was a rosebush under the window, an old-fashioned one. Its blooms were not beautiful, but they were very sweet. It had flung a slim, white spray of them into the room. Demaris never smelled their fragrance afterward without a keen, exquisite thrill of passion, as brief as it was delicious.
“I can’t, Frank.” Her tone was low and uncertain. “I can’t leave my mother. She’s sick an’ gettin’ old. I can’t.”
“Oh, Demaris! That’s rank foolishness!”
“Well, I guess it’s the right kind of foolishness.” She drew away and sat looking at him. Her hands were pressed together in her lap.
“Why, it ain’t expected that a girl ’ad ought to stay an’ take care o’ her mother forever, is it? It ain’t expected that she ought to turn herself into a hospital nurse, is it?”