To his consternation Erminie showed no concern. “Oh, no; ma won’t worry. She’ll think I’ve gone home with one of the girls.”
“Is it—is it often—that way? Doesn’t she know where you go?”
“Not to which house. I’ve a lot of chums, most of them out of school; and their young men—when I don’t have one of my own—take us to the theatre, and to supper afterwards; and it’s late then; and if I stay with the girl the young fellow doesn’t have to make another trip taking me home.”
Billy was silent, wondering what his mother would think of a girl who went about thus. It revealed to him a new sort of girl-life. In his boyhood town of Vina such a situation as this could not have happened; and in his city life he had known intimately only the cherished and protected daughters of careful parents.
His own evenings were full of boyish things, meetings, study, decorous calls, and work or play at home. His attendance at the theatre was rare, either in school groups or with his mother, or alone, high among the “gallery gods.” He tried to put out of mind the feeling of “commonness” that Erminie’s story gave him.
As if she divined his thought, she said a little plaintively, “I know lots of mothers don’t think it nice for girls to run about so; but mine always told me to go ahead and have a good time while I could. When I am married, she says, all such fun will be over.”
“Well, it won’t be!” Billy’s vehemence startled her. “But it will be a long time before we can be married; I’ve got to learn how to earn a living first. But it shall be a good enough living to include a little fun.”
“Billy!” Surprise, gratitude, and besides these a more genuine and womanly emotion than she had ever experienced, came out in the single word. “Billy, what do you mean?”
“Mean? Why, our marriage of course. At first I felt badly because you would have to wait so long; but I don’t any more. I had a good chin with my mother. You and I—we’ll both of us be all the better for waiting and—learning things.”
For a time Erminie sat quite still save for absently stirring the ashes with a twig. When she did speak her voice was low, with a half timid note in it that touched Billy. “How splendid you are, Billy! Too good for me. I didn’t dream you thought that—that we were engaged.”