“Well, I think she doesn't,” George said, carelessly, “but you are mighty good to say you see no reason why she shouldn't. You and I have always been good friends, haven't we, Lily, ever since we went to school together?”
“Yes,” replied Lily, eagerly, although she did not like the word friends, which seemed to smite on the heart. She lifted her face to the young man's, and her lips pouted almost imperceptibly. It could not have been said that she was inviting a kiss, but no man could have avoided kissing her. George Ramsey kissed her as naturally as he breathed. There seemed to be nothing else to do. It was one of the inevitables of life. Then Lily opened the door and slid into the house with a tremulous good-night.
George himself felt tremulous, and also astonished and vexed with himself. He had certainly not meant to kiss Lily Merrill. But it flashed across his mind that she would not think anything of it, that he had kissed her often when they were children, and it was the same thing now. As he went away he glanced back at the lighted windows, and a man's shadow was quite evident. He wondered who was calling on Lily's mother, and then wondered, with a slight shadow of jealousy, if it could be some one who had come to see Lily herself. He reflected, as he went homeward through the storm, that a girl as pretty as Lily ought to have some one worthy of her. He went over in his mind, as he puffed his cigar, all the young men in Amity, and it did not seem to him that any one of them was quite the man for her.
When he reached home he found his mother already there, warming herself by the sitting-room register. She had gone to the tea-party in a carriage (George would not have her walk), but she was chilled. She was a delicate, pretty woman. She looked up, shivering, as George entered.
“Where have you been, dear?” she asked.
George laughed, and colored a little. “Well, mother, I went to see one young lady and saw another,” he replied.
Just then the maid came in with some hot chocolate, which Mrs. Ramsey always drank before she went to bed, and she asked no more questions until the girl had gone; then she resumed the conversation.
“What do you mean, dear?” she inquired, looking over the rim of the china cup at her son, with a slight, anxious contraction of her forehead.
“Well, I felt a little lonely after you went, mother, and I had nothing especial to do, and it occurred to me that I would go over and call on our neighbor.”
“On young Maria Edgham?”