“And you think that the skillful Maud was trying to hint that it was off between Horatia and Jim Langley?”
“She had a saddened and romantic air about Horatia. I don’t know exactly what she was trying to imply. But from a rather steady stream of inquiries as to your whereabouts I was inclined to have vulgar suspicions that she was really interested in you and your movements. And then she said, ‘I suppose you know how it is, Mrs. Clapp, when these young things turn to you with their romantic difficulties.’ And then she giggled. How that remarkable young woman can giggle!” finished Marjorie.
Anthony sat puzzling.
“Of course Horatia doesn’t tell her a thing,” he said, “but that sort of woman is astute as the devil in some ways. Well, if she comes down here, Langley or no Langley, I’m going to go after her. If she wanted to marry Langley badly enough she has had time enough to make sure by this time. But it’s ridiculous to think of her wasting her time on one of these awfully complicated intellectual emotional affairs if it’s not going to come to anything. If she doesn’t want me she can tell me again—stronger—to get to hell out—and I’ll get. But I’m going to get the thing settled. I thought maybe I’d get over it when I got West. I didn’t see a girl while I was out there who seemed real at all. And I’d catch myself mooning. It’s unhealthy. It’s got to be stopped.”
“You want to remember,” said Marjorie, “that Horatia has had a hard summer and that she will be tired. Don’t rush her too hard or she’ll go to pieces or send you packing from sheer weariness.”
“I don’t mean to tire her. I want to rest her.” There was a strange mixture of protectiveness and sullenness in Anthony’s tone.
“It’s all nonsense anyway,” he went on, “to think of her wearing herself out in that miserable office. Girls oughtn’t to be allowed to knock themselves to pieces that way. Where it’s necessary it’s bad enough but when a girl——”
“Has only to sit back and let you support her,” laughed Marjorie.
“When a girl is like Horatia she’s altogether too valuable to throw herself away for some fetish like earning a living. You know exactly what I mean and you agree with me too, Marge.”
“It all depends on how much you can make her care for you.”