"What for?" he said, puzzled.
"To walk," she said, impatiently. His little start of astonishment annoyed her. "Perhaps you are glad to miss it?"
"I guess I am," he admitted, honestly. "I'm afraid I'd show the yellow streak."
She was plainly disappointed in him.
"'Course I believe in suffrage," he said, "but I hate to see a lot of ladies walking in the middle of the street."
"We're not 'ladies'; we're women."
"You're a lady, and you can't escape it. And I'd hate to see Laura do it," he added.
Fred had not a mean fiber in her, and jealousy is all meanness; but, somehow, she felt a stab of something like pain. She did not connect it with Laura; it was only because he was indifferent to what was so important to her—and to Laura, too. And because he was going away, and here they were, he and she, just being polite to each other!
"Laura and I don't enjoy the middle of the street," she said; "but I hope we won't funk it."