“I don’t know,” admitted Emmy. “But it’s safer.”
“Whose way do you go?” Jenny had stumbled upon a question so unanswerable that she was at liberty to answer it for herself. “I don’t know whose way you go now; but I do know whose way you’ll go soon. You’ll go Alf’s way.”
“Well?” demanded Emmy. “If it’s a good way?”
“Well, I go Keith’s way!” Jenny answered, in a fine glow. “And he goes mine.”
Emmy looked at her, shaking her head in a kind of narrow wisdom.
“Not if he sends a chauffeur,” she said slowly. “Not that sort of man.”
v
For a moment Jenny’s heart burned with indignation. Then it turned cold. If Emmy were right! Supposing—just supposing.... Savagely she thrust doubt of Keith from her: her trust in him was forced by dread into still warmer and louder proclamation.
“You don’t understand!” she cried. “You couldn’t. You’ve never seen him. Wait a minute!” She went quickly out of the kitchen and up to her bedroom. There, secretly kept from every eye, was the little photograph of Keith. She brought it down. In anxious triumph she showed it to Emmy. Emmy’s three years’ seniority had never been of so much account. “There,” Jenny said. “That’s Keith. Look at him!”
Emmy held the photograph under the meagre light. She was astonished, although she kept outwardly calm; because Keith—besides being obviously what is called a gentleman—looked honest and candid. She could not find fault with the face.