“Who’s she?”
“Now, don’t be funny, Jo. You know very well I mean the girl who was here for dinner. The one who talked so well on the emigration question.”
“Oh, her! Why, I liked her all right. Seems to be a smart woman.”
“Smart! She’s a perfectly splendid girl.”
“Sure,” Jo would agree cheerfully.
“But didn’t you like her?”
“I can’t say I did, Eve. And I can’t say I didn’t. She made me think a lot of a teacher I had in the fifth reader. Name of Himes. As I recall her, she must have been a fine woman. But I never thought of her as a woman at all. She was just Teacher.”
“You make me tired,” snapped Eva impatiently. “A man of your age. You don’t expect to marry a girl, do you? A child!”
“I don’t expect to marry anybody,” Jo had answered.
And that was the truth, lonely though he often was.