“In their mind a child constitutes marriage?”
“If its father does not want to marry anyone else,” he answered. “They will be satisfied if he lets things alone, but he won’t.”
“He does want to marry?”
“I think so. Money will considerably improve his house, and pay off some of the mortgages; he will, I expect, take a wife with money.”
“It is terrible, and such a pity. I always liked Mr. Harvey for his mother’s sake, and I have ever made him welcome.”
“I advised him to marry her—the squaw,” said Mr. Archer. “It will finish him socially, but in other ways it will make a man of him. Harvey is—”
Here they walked away to the bow of the Lethe, and Launa’s companion talked on, and she answered him.
She impressed him with her interest, her air of being fascinated by him, and all the while she was in torment. Harvey had held her hand! She took off her pale tan suede glove and threw it into the water. It burnt her; her hands felt hot.
Her quick action puzzled Mr. Evans.
“Miss Archer, your glove! Is it a challenge? Do you mean me to go after it?”