Again she paused and laughed.
“Tell me”—he pleaded.
“Come in first—we can’t stand here on the sidewalk like two spooning children—this is our house—”
CHAPTER VII
WITH light step Virginia mounted the low stone stoop, fumbled for her keys, unlocked the massive door and ushered John Vassar into the dimly lighted hall.
“Come right into the sitting-room in the rear and meet my father and mother,” she cried, placing her little turban hat on the rack beside his, man-fashion.
Vassar smiled at the assumption of equal rights the act implied. She caught the smile and answered with a toss of her pretty head as he followed her through the hall.
The older folks were bending over a table deeply absorbed in a game of checkers. The picture caught Vassar’s fancy and held him in the doorway, a pleasant smile lighting his dark strong face.
“Mother,” Virginia began softly, “it’s time for children to quit their games. I want you to meet Mr. John Vassar whom I’m trying to dragoon into our cause—”
The prim aristocratic little woman rose with dignity and extended her hand in a gesture that spoke the inheritance of gentle breeding. She was a native of Columbia, South Carolina. Her stock joke of self-pity was the fact that she had married a Sherman Bummer who had helped to burn her native city. She excused him always with the apology that he was so young he was really not responsible for the bad company in which she found him. As a matter of fact he had driven a gang of drunken marauders from their house and defended them single handed through a night of terror until order had been restored. It was ten years later before he succeeded in persuading the fair young rebel to surrender.