"You're awful' kind," she said softly, still smiling, "but I don't care to go, now. I—"
"Don't care to! Why, you were insisting on going, a little while ago."
"Yes," she admitted simply, "I know I was. But ... I've been thinking over what you said, since then, and I ... I've made up my mind I'd be out of place there."
"Out of place!" he echoed, thunderstruck.
"Yes. I've concluded I belong here in the store with father." She half turned away. "And I guess folks is better off if they stay where they belong...."
She went slowly from the room, and he remained staring, stupefied.
"You never can tell about a woman," he concluded with all the gravity of an original philosopher.
[ XV ]
MANOEUVRES OF JOSIE
Nat didn't go to the Lockwood lawn fête, and did excuse himself on the plea of being unable to leave the store. I'm afraid the young man had a faint, fond hope that Josie would be offended; but his excuse was accepted without remonstrance. And, indeed, it was at that time quite a reasonable one. Tracey had not been added to the staff, although business was booming, and Saturday night is, as everyone who has lived in a Radville knows, the busiest of the week; all the stores keep open late on Saturday—some as late as eleven—and frequently take in half the week's income between noon and the closing hour. Duncan really couldn't be spared; so it's probable that Josie cloaked her disappointment and comforted herself with the assurance that her selection of the day had been an error in judgment, of which she would not again be guilty.