Evan rented a livery, and Lily's folk raising no objection, the young girl went out to advertise the fact that she had a banker beau. All the town wondered.
It is easy to condemn Evan for his flirtations with Julia Watersea and Lily Allen. If he had stayed at school, matters would have been different. When the mind is wading through study it turns readily to pleasure, but does not dwell upon it. In the simple routine of the bank, in spite of the books he read, Evan found his mind drifting to excitement of some sort continually. When he brought it up, there was nothing for it to settle upon. When he left Mt. Alban he was being gradually drawn into what was called the "social life"—a life that would make him an ideal bankclerk, but nothing bigger. Now, after a few months of ease, he found himself craving the whirl again; and he must seize any small pleasure at hand.
So he seized Lily Allen around the waist and acted sentimentally.
"You mustn't," she murmured, making no effort to release herself.
"I must," said he. That was the way he felt.
When winter had come Evan had saved enough to take him home for Christmas. He was very careful with strangers, especially when they wore whiskers. He knew everybody in Creek Bend; especially did he know the Allens. After that night of the drive he and Lily had spent many an hour together. The result of it was that he let his correspondence with Frankie fall off, soothing his conscience with Reade. Occasionally he sent a picture-postal to Julia Watersea, too, and when it was answered in like manner he always felt better.
Christmas was nearing now. The snow stayed, to prepare the roads for Santa's outfit. The two stores of Creek Bend had decorated their fronts with tissue-paper and pressed raisins, and the post-office emitted holly stickers.
A village post-office is always interesting. That of Creek Bend interested Evan, not because of curious loiterers—themselves curiosities—but principally on account of its fair clerk. He admitted as much to himself. The village had him married to Lily, and he began to wonder if she really hadn't points over Frankie.
"Another of those bank letters you all look for so anxiously, Evan," she smiled, handing him an envelope from the Inspector's Department.
A few minutes later he called in the post-office again and beckoned Lily to the money-order wicket.