“I am sure that he would not.”
“Not if they coaxed him to?”
“He should have manliness enough to resist all their pretty arts, and enticing ways.”
“Mother, can’t you convince her? She has been rating me soundly for flirting, when it is the girls that are flirting with me.”
“It takes two to flirt,” replied his mother.
Dr. Towne was sent for as they were rising from the dinner table; Mrs. Towne and Tessa crossed the Park alone; at the entrance of the Lecture Room Sue Greyson met them.
“I had to come,” Sue whispered, seizing Tessa’s arm. “Father is so horrid and hateful, and said awful things to me just because I asked him to write to Stacey. The letter is written anyhow, and I’m thankful it’s over. Father says that he won’t give me the house, and that I sha’n’t be married under his roof. He is mad with Gerald, too, and told him to leave his house. So Gerald left and went to see a patient. He is so happy that he don’t care what father says.”
As they passed down the aisle, Tessa’s dress brushed against Felix Harrison; he was sitting alone with his father.
“Why! Felix Harrison! Did you ever?” whispered irrepressible Sue.
The Lecture Room was well-lighted, and well-filled. Professor Towne was the fashion in Dunellen. During the opening prayer there was a stir in one of the pews behind Tessa; she did not lift her head, her heart beat so rapidly that she felt as if she were suffocating.