"Come on, fellows, we'll miss the car. Let him be a stiff if he wants to."
Peter heard their feet retreating on the stairs, and then he saw that Minnie Havens still hesitated at the landing. She had on her best silk waist and her blond pompadour was brushed higher than ever. Her eyes, which were blue, were fixed directly on him with something in the meeting that gave him the impression, gaspingly, of being about to step off into space. He seemed suddenly to see a path opening directly through the skating rink and the Saturday Social Club to the House of the Shining Walls, and Minnie Havens walking in it beside him. He wrenched his mind away forcibly from that and fixed it on the figure of his weekly salary.
"Couldn't you?" she persuaded.
"No," said Peter. "I'm much obliged to you, but I really couldn't."
But before he had time to take up his reading, which somehow he was not able to do immediately, he heard Mrs. Blodgett, who made a point of being as kind to her boarders as she could afford to be, tapping at his door.
"I thought you'd be going to the rink to-night."
"No," said Peter.
"You don't think it's wrong, or anything?"
"Oh, no, not in the least."
"Well, Mr. Weatheral, I've seen a power of young folks, comin' and goin', in my business and it don't pay for 'em to get too stodgy like. They need livenin' up." She hung upon the door as Peter waited for her to go. "Miss Havens is a nice girl," she ventured.