“Thank you,” she returned coldly. “I haven’t the faintest idea of giving up my purpose, even to ‘have the time of my life.’ And I do think you were hateful not to have stood by your sister. Besides, you might at least have said that you did not believe I had tried to influence Mildred, when your mother accused me. She was extremely unkind.”
Entering the library Dick now took a chair not far from their visitor’s, so that he could plainly observe the expressions on her face.
“Of course, I didn’t stand up for Mill; I wouldn’t let her go into all that sorrow and danger, even if mother consented,” he protested. “Your coming here and all the talk you two girls have had about the poor, brave, wounded soldiers and such stuff, of course has influenced Mill. It has even influenced me—a little. But the fact is the war in Europe isn’t our job.”
“No, perhaps not,” the girl answered slowly, perhaps that she might add the greater effect; “but would you mind telling me just what is your job? You have already told me so many things that were not. Is it doing one-steps and fox trots and singing fairly well? I presume I don’t understand New York society, for out west our young men, no matter how rich their fathers happen to be, try to amount to something themselves; they do some kind of work.”
Under his nonchalant manner Dick had become angry. But no one knew better than he the value of appearing cool in a disagreement with a girl. So he only shrugged his shoulders in a dandified fashion.
“I wonder why you think I am not at present engaged in a frantic search for a job on which to expend my magnificent energy?” Here Dick purposely yawned, extending his long legs into a more reposeful position. “The fact is, I believe I must have been waiting for an uncommonly frank young person from the west to give me the benefit of her advice. What would you suggest as a career for me? Remember, I saved your life this afternoon, so you may devote it to the unfortunate. Now what would you think of my turning chauffeur? I’m not a bad one; you ask our man. Who knows, perhaps driving an automobile is my real gift!”
Of course, her companion’s good humor again put her in the wrong, although Barbara knew that she was wrong in any case. For what possible right had she, after having known Dick Thornton less than a week, to undertake to tell him what he should or should not do? It was curious what a fighting instinct he had immediately aroused in her! She felt that she would almost like to hit him in order to make him wake up and realize that there was something in life besides being handsome and good-natured and smiling lazily upon the world.
However, Barbara now clasped her hands together, church fashion, inclining her curly head.
“Beg pardon again. After all, what should a Prince Charming be except a Prince Charming?” she murmured. “You are a kind of liberal education. I’ve lived such a work-a-day life, I can’t understand why it seems so dreadful to you and your family to do the work one loves in the place where it seems to be most needed. We nurses will be under orders from people older and wiser than we are. If we come close to suffering—well, one can’t live very long without doing that. But I don’t want to bore you; you will be rid of me for life in a little while, and I’ll leave now if your mother and father feel my plans are affecting Mildred.”
“You will do no such thing.” Dick’s voice was curt and less polite than usual, but it was certainly decisive and so ended the discussion.