“Who says so?” asked Lois, startled, but contemptuous.
“Billy, for one.”
“I do not see what business it is of his.”
“That hasn’t anything to do with it, Lois. As a matter of fact, the boy wouldn’t have told me at all if I hadn’t happened to sit with him to-day; he’s heard plenty of remarks on it, though, and he’s cut up about it. They sat in front of us, some seats down, entirely oblivious of everybody; it might have been their private car. It gave me a start, I can tell you, when Billy said it was not the first time. Has she said anything to you about it?”
“Yes, I think she has mentioned once or twice that she had seen him on the train; I know he brought her home one afternoon when she was late. But I haven’t paid any particular attention; and, after all, there’s no harm in it.”
“Oh, no; there’s no harm, if you put it that way—only she mustn’t do it. You know what I mean, Lois. Dosia ought not to want to be with him.”
“I suppose he comes and talks to her, and she doesn’t know how to stop him.”
“Perhaps.”
“And you sent her out in his care that first night,” said Lois. She felt unbelieving and combative; Lawson was so unattractive to her that she could not conceive of his being otherwise to any girl.
“Of course; and I would do so again under the same circumstances—that was an emergency. But that’s very different from making a practice of it. You must tell Dosia, as long as she can’t see it herself. Let her get her lesson changed to another hour and that will settle the thing. Does she see much of Barr at other places?”