“He’s wild over you,” said Viola as we toiled up the stairs that we had come to call “The last, long mile.” . . . We had sent Sam off at the door, because he had to walk back to the Piazza del Duomo again to get his car, and the town was still heavy and sultry with the heat that the day had held.
“Nonsense!” I answered sharply.
“Yes, he is. We might have a double wedding—”
I was furious.
“I’m going home to play the organ in the First Presbyterian Church,” I stated, “and to give music lessons, and I won’t have time to get married for years!”
She laughed.
“I’m only eighteen,” I added, and with resentment.
“I’ll bet on twenty for you,” she said teasingly.
“Not before I’m twenty-one,” I answered before I thought, and then I grew pink. Viola laughed, as Maria, the new maid, opened the door for us. “Oh, he’ll get you,” she prophesied, “and he’ll court you divinely. . . . It’s plain that he doesn’t like me, but I like and admire him in spite of it. . . . And you know lots of women go right along with their careers after marriage.”
I didn’t answer that, but I did know that if I ever did marry, my first thought would be to follow, as nearly as I could, the fine career my Mother had had and to make my husband as comfortable and as happy as Mother had made Father. For I feel that that should come first.