She walked to the open door and laughed at them mockingly.
“I’m all in, dead tired! Billy’s going to take me home!”
The sight of them, flushed, rumpled, maudlin, increased her desire to escape as quickly as possible. She bade them good-night amid their loud reproaches, went for her hat and coat, and was soon in Copeland’s white roadster spinning toward town.
“Well, Nan, this is fine. We can go on with our talk now.”
“But we finished that, Billy. We can’t go back to it again!”
“Oh, yes, we can; there’s only one way to end it! That sort of thing”—he jerked his head toward the Kinneys’—“isn’t for you and me. I’ve cut it out; passed it up for good. I’m going to live straight and try to get back all I’ve lost: I know everybody’s down on me—waiting to see me take the count. But with you everything will be different. You know that; you understand it, Nan!”
Nan’s thoughts were sober ones. She did like Billy; his good conduct at the party was encouraging; he could be a man if he would. He was a boy—a big, foolish boy, kind of heart, and generous, with a substratum of real character. The actual difference in years did not matter greatly; he was as slim and trim as a youngster just out of college. From the beginning of their acquaintance they had got on amazingly well together. And he loved her; she was honestly convinced of this. Like many young girls she had found the adoration of an older man flattering. A Farley had been cruelly unjust to her; there was always that justification. Even after she had given him her solemn assurances that she would not marry Billy, he had deliberately planned to give the bulk of his fortune to charity.
After the scenes at the Kinneys’ she found infinite relief and comfort in the rush of the cool night air, and in the bright shield of stars above. Billy was the only person in all the world who cared, who understood! In her anxiety to be just, she gave to his good conduct during the evening an exaggerated importance and assured herself that there was a manliness in him that she had never appreciated.
“Dear old Billy!” she said softly, and laid her hand lightly on his arm.
“Oh, Nan!”