“Talk! They’ll talk anyway. They’ll talk after they are dead, some of them.... Well, then I shall come here to see you. I can do that, can’t I?”
“I—I don’t think you had better.”
“Don’t you want to see me?”
She hesitated. “That hasn’t anything to do with it, really,” she declared. “You know it hasn’t, Bob. When you think of your grandfather and my uncle—”
“I won’t,” he broke in, emphatically. “That is just what I won’t do. And you mustn’t either. You and I ought to think of ourselves. We agreed, that afternoon of the thunderstorm, that we hadn’t anything to do with a family row which is already years and years old. If you can’t come to see me I am coming to see you. And I shall.”
“But uncle—”
“I’m not coming to see him. And—why, he was nice enough to me this evening. I rather expected he might tell me to clear out, but he didn’t.”
“No, he didn’t. But I am sure he doesn’t like it. How can he? Your grandfather—”
“Oh, forget my grandfather! Esther Townsend, I shall come here again—yes, and soon. How about next Tuesday evening? Are you free then?”
“Why—why, yes, I suppose I shall be. But, Bob—”