She was rather relieved that he did not amplify the suggestive “for the present.” He was thinking, she assumed, of his wife and the freedom which he had intimated would be his for the asking. But marriage was no assurance of the perpetuation of love; it was a convention, no doubt desirable and necessary for society’s protection; but Grace was in a mood to enjoy her sense of being in rebellion against society, that intangible “they” which, she had brought herself to believe, quite ignorantly established laws and in the light of them appraised and condemned human frailty.
She derived the greatest comfort from this idea; it encouraged and strengthened her belief that she was an independent unit of the social order. If her relationship with Trenton became known she would forfeit the love and confidence of her family and many prized friendships. But his love would be compensation for anything she might lose in the eyes of people she felt to be hopelessly shackled to old notions of rectitude and chastity with which she no longer felt any concern. It would be necessary, of course, to maintain secrecy; but it was no one’s business what she did with her life.
“Last chance for a kiss,” Trenton exclaimed, slipping his arm about her as they reached the Meridian street bridge.
She asked him to let her out at the soldiers’ monument to avoid the possibility of being inspected by questioning eyes at Shipley’s. Trenton was going at once to Kemp’s house to make sure Tommy was all right; he meant to have it out with Tommy about his drinking.
“Tell your father I’d like to see him tomorrow at two o’clock. Yes; I have the address.”
With his good-bye ringing in her ears she walked the few remaining blocks to the store.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I
When Grace reached home that evening her absence of the preceding night was barely mentioned by her mother, and Ethel did not refer to it at all. The conduct of another member of the family had aroused grave apprehensions in the domestic circle and any suspected derelictions of her own were suffered to pass, or were accepted in a spirit of resignation, as a part of a visitation of an inscrutable providence upon the house of Durland.
Roy had turned up in the early hours of the morning much the worse for dalliance with a contraband beverage that had served him ill. There was gloom in the kitchen where she found her mother and Ethel preparing supper and after satisfying herself that she was not the cause of the depression she summoned courage to ask her mother what had happened.