The new arrangement had not been in force long till reports came, in one way and another, to Austin’s ears. There were fragments of conversations that floated into his bedchamber as he was trying to coax sleep to his weary eyes when the children were all home, bits of information that made him fearful that Amy was taking advantage of his absence at night to follow out her own plans.
“Amy, where were you last night?” he asked one day after he was certain he had some facts.
“Minding my own affairs,” was the lofty reply.
“Were you out with Herb Wilson?” he asked again.
“I was out a while in the evening, if you must know, and Herb was in the crowd,” she answered insolently.
“Do you not know that he and his crowd are not the kind of people you should be with?” he asked severely.
“Are you their judge that you can so sneeringly speak of them?” she asked as the angry blood rushed to her face.
“I am not sneering at them, but I do wish to protect the good name of my sister, and I will have to forbid your going out with them again,” he said decidedly.
“There you go, ordering me around like a little child. You expect me to obey you like Lila does. I will not, and I shall go out with whom and when I please,” was her defiant reply.
Austin’s lips again formed the straight line that meant battle. Amy felt a shudder of apprehension go through her being; but the same fighting blood was in her. She thought that he was encroaching on her rights, and she was set not to submit. He saw the danger she was in, and, besides that, the baleful influence she would have over the younger children if she so set his authority aside, and he felt that his home was again in jeopardy. So far as he was concerned, there would be no giving in.