"Oh! I don't know that I can tell you, Aunt Emily," Raymond fidgeted. "Fellows are beginning to think a bit more about the clean places in women's lives. I reckon that we haven't so much an idea about sanctuaries of ours as that we are cultivating an honest-to-God determination to keep from making wrecks of women's shrines. I know this sounds blithering, but, you see, a decent chap wants to ask some girl to give him a better thing than forgiveness when the time comes. He wants to cut out the excuse business. He doesn't want women like you to be ashamed of him—when they come where they have to call things by their right names."
"Ken, I don't believe you're in good form. You'd much better come up to Maine!"
Emily Tweksbury looked as if she wanted to cry; her expression was so comical that Raymond laughed aloud.
"I'll come in August," he said at last. "I'll take the whole month and frivol with you."
Mrs. Tweksbury was, however, not through with what she had to say. She looked at the big, handsome fellow across the room and he seemed suddenly to become very young and helpless, very much needing guidance, and yet she knew how he would resent any such interference in his life.
"What's on your mind, Aunt Emily?"
Raymond had turned the tables—he smiled down upon the old lady with the masterful tenderness of youth.
"Let's have it, dear."
Mrs. Tweksbury resorted to subterfuge.
"Well, having you off my hands," she said, smiling as if she really meant what she said, "I am thinking of Doris Fletcher!"