"You and your fear of the newspapers!" Winifred retorted. "They need never know."
"You can't go up to my place without some chaperon!" Willie snapped, with a pettish firmness. "I don't run a road-house, you know."
"If you've got to have a chaperon, maybe you'd take me," said Mrs. Neff.
"You!" Willie laughed cynically. "And who'll chaperon the chaperon? You'll make more mischief than anybody. Your affair with Mr. Lord—er, pardon me, Mr. Ward—is the talk of the town already."
Mrs. Neff's laugh was a mixture of ridicule at the possibility and yearning that it might not be impossible. Her comment was in the spirit of burlesque.
"But if I marry him afterward it will put a stop to the scandal."
"Mother, you are simply indecent!" her daughter piped up, with a kind of militant innocence.
The luxury of such a reproof was too dear to Mrs. Neff's unwithered heart to be neglected. She added her vote to those of Winifred and Persis.
Forbes dared not speak, but he was aglow with the vision of a few days with Persis in the country. As he crossed the continent he had seen the traces of spring everywhere; everywhere the mad incendiary had been kindling fires in tree and shrub and sward. From the train window he had watched the splendors unroll like a moving film. He had wished to leap from the car and wander with somebody—with a vague somebody. And now he had found her, and the golden opportunity tapped on the window.
Willie fenced with Winifred till the luncheon was finished. Then they retired to the lounge for coffee. Here women had the franchise for public smoking, and they puffed like small boys. Winifred renewed the battle for the picnic.