He added, smiling: “The only law of love subscribed to by sane people is framed by a balanced brain and interpreted by common sense. Those who obey any other code go a-glimmering, saint and sinner, novice and Magdalene alike.... This is your street, I believe.”
They shook hands cordially.
After dining en famille, Shotwell Junior considered the various diversions offered to young business men after a day of labour.
There were theatres; there was the Club de Vingt and similar agreeable asylums; there was also a telephone to ring, and unpremeditated suggestions to make to friends, either masculine or feminine.
Or he could read and improve his mind. Or go to Carnegie Hall with his father and mother and listen to music of sorts.... Or––he could call up Elorn Sharrow.
He couldn’t decide; and his parents presently derided him and departed music-ward without him. He read an evening paper, discarded it, poked the fire, stood before it, jingled a few coins and keys in his pocket, 79 still undecided, still rather disinclined to any exertion, even as far as the club.
“I wonder,” he thought, “what that girl is doing now. I’ve a mind to call her up.”
He seemed to know whom he meant by “that girl.” Also, it was evident that he did not mean Elorn Sharrow; for it was not her number he called and presently got.
“Miss Dumont?”