“But he is an old man,” returned Gerhardt, voicing the words of Weaver. “He is a public citizen. What should he want to call on a girl like Jennie for?”
“I don’t know,” said Mrs. Gerhardt, defensively. “He comes here to the house. I don’t know anything but good about the man. Can I tell him not to come?”
Gerhardt paused at this. All that he knew of the Senator was excellent. What was there now that was so terrible about it?
“The neighbors are so ready to talk. They haven’t got anything else to talk about now, so they talk about Jennie. You know whether she is a good girl or not. Why should they say such things?” and tears came into the soft little mother’s eyes.
“That is all right,” grumbled Gerhardt, “but he ought not to want to come around and take a girl of her age out walking. It looks bad, even if he don’t mean any harm.”
At this moment Jennie came in. She had heard the talking in the front bedroom, where she slept with one of the children, but had not suspected its import. Now her mother turned her back and bent over the table where she was making biscuit, in order that her daughter might not see her red eyes.
“What’s the matter?” she inquired, vaguely troubled by the tense stillness in the attitude of both her parents.
“Nothing,” said Gerhardt firmly.
Mrs. Gerhardt made no sign, but her very immobility told something. Jennie went over to her and quickly discovered that she had been weeping.
“What’s the matter?” she repeated wonderingly, gazing at her father.