The girl stared into his eyes. They had reached the gate of the farmhouse, and he opened it for her.
“Now, good night,” he said, pressing her hand. “Remember, if you ever hear a lonely whippoorwill calling, that he is longing for companionship.”
She leaned over the gate, drawing it toward her till the latch clicked in its catch. She was thinking of the hot kiss he had pressed upon her lips, and what he might later think about it.
“I’ll never meet you there at night,” she said firmly. “My mother does not treat me right, but I shall not do that when she is asleep. You may come to see me here once in awhile if you wish.”
“Well, I shall sit alone in the arbor,” he returned, with a low laugh, “and I hope your hard heart will keep you awake.”
She opened the front door, which was never locked, and went into her room on the right of the little hall. The night was very still, and down the road she heard Floyd’s whippoorwill call growing fainter and fainter as he strode away. She found a match and lighted the lamp on her bureau, and looked at her reflection in the little oval-shaped mirror. Instinctively she shuddered and brushed her lips with her hand as she remembered his embrace.
“He’ll despise me,” she muttered. “He’ll think I am weak like all the rest, but I am not. I am not! I’ll show him that he can’t—and yet”—her head sank to her hands, which were folded on the top of the bureau—“I couldn’t help it. My God, I couldn’t help it! I must have wanted—no, I didn’t. I didn’t!”
There was a soft step in the hall. The door of her room creaked like the low scream of a cat. A figure in white stood on the threshold. It was Mrs. Porter in her nightdress, her feet bare, her iron-gray half-twisted hair hanging upon her shoulders.
“I couldn’t go to sleep, Cynthia,” she said, “till I knew you were safe at home.”
“Well, I’m here all right, mother; so go back to bed, and don’t catch your death of cold.”