“I wish you wouldn’t forever harp on ‘child.’ I was no child. I was fifteen years old, and knew exactly what I was about. If I had been a fifteen-year-old puppy you’d have given me credit for something.”
“That’s just the point—the only point; you were not a puppy, but a girl-child of fifteen, writing a very sentimental letter to a man of twenty-five. The rules of the game are very clear, my dear. The man of twenty-five must not encourage sentiment, or he is a—a—foul thing. It’s the law of our civilization; and I was not free to break it.”
“‘America! Ze lant of Leeberty!’” she mimicked Bardek softly. “‘You couldn’t write what you thought.... No, I see that.... You’d have been ashamed, wouldn’t you?... It is one of t’ t’ings you would die for, eh? Wass?’”
“Absolutely!” he spoke with conviction. “Bless my soul!”
“All right,” she regarded him carefully. “You are forgiven—almost.... You made me so blamed mad, by just letting me slide that way, that I could have done things to you. Well, that’s all over and I feel better. I couldn’t quarrel with anybody very long today; this new dress fits too well; but I just had to have this thing out with you, Allen Blynn, or—or—” She could not think of an adequate figure of speech.
“Now,” she went on; “topic number—what number is it? Five, I think. Topic number five. Tell me all about Germany. That’s the last topic till we reach Haverford. Just go on, and on, and talk and talk, and I’ll snuggle up in this corner and listen.... Hurry!... Begin!”
She leaned back in the cushion with a rug tucked up and around her as warm and contented as a sleepy kitten.
He talked of Germany, and world politics, and literature and pedagogy. When he drooped, she stirred him on.
As they drew near Haverford he asked her a question about the games. She gave no answer. Propped in her corner, just beside the wrinkles made where the hood of the carriage is thrown back, she was having a contented, smiling slumber.
He watched her as she slept, mused on her calms and her storms, speculated as to what sort of character was emerging. As they drew into the Club gateway, he touched her gently.