All the fire of her being leaped to her eyes as she put the question, leaving her face ghastly. It was as if her whole life hung on the answer.
“Sorrow and disappointment? Oh, I am sure they do. And, my dear Mrs. Trench, I wouldn’t lay too much stress on the infatuation of a man you met in the Pullman. To write to him—letters you couldn’t show your husband—might be followed by serious complications.”
“Don’t you think I have character—stability enough to—you won’t say anything about this to Larimore?”
“Surely not.”
V
That evening David and Lavinia went out to sprinkle the vegetable garden, their arms around each other’s waists, their attitude that of a honeymoon pair. When the task was done they came to the summer house for an hour’s visit. Not even Hal and Eileen, in the first fever of their revealed engagement, were more frankly devoted than they. It seemed to Judith, sitting with them, that the woman was the aggressor, that she multiplied endearing terms and half-concealed caresses, to assure herself that she truly felt what her lips were saying. For David these manifestations were unnecessary. His whole being was a caress.
VI
August passed, and the first hot days of September—their discomfort forgotten in the excitement of Eileen’s entrance into college. There was yet another week before Hal must depart for his examinations, and on Thursday evening he failed to report, either in person or by telephone. The omission elicited no comment. But when the week had slipped by, and it became known that the youth had departed for New York without calling to say good-bye, Lavinia made bold to question her daughter.
“If he didn’t want to come, I’m sure nobody was going to ask him,” the girl flung back, her eyes darkening.
“Never mind, dear. These little quarrels only prove that it is true love. You and Hal will make it all up in your letters.”