"He's as open as it's in the nature of an American-born son to be with his parents. I dare say if you'd asked him plumply what he meant in regard to the young lady, he would have told you--if he knew."
"Why, don't you think he does know, Bromfield?"
"I'm not at all sure he does. You women think that because a young man dangles after a girl, or girls, he's attached to them. It doesn't at all follow. He dangles because he must, and doesn't know what to do with his time, and because they seem to like it. I dare say that Tom has dangled a good deal in this instance because there was nobody else in town."
"Do you really think so?"
"I throw out the suggestion. And it strikes me that a young lady couldn't do better than stay in or near Boston during the summer. Most of the young men are here, kept by business through the week, with evenings available only on the spot, or a few miles off. What was the proportion of the sexes at the seashore and the mountains?"
"Oh, twenty girls at least for even an excuse of a man. It's shameful."
"You see, I am right in one part of my theory. Why shouldn't I be right in the rest?"
"I wish you were. And yet I can't say that I do. Those things are very serious with girls. I shouldn't like Tom to have been going to see those people if he meant nothing by it."
"And you wouldn't like it if he did. You are difficult, my dear." Her husband pulled an open newspaper toward him from the table.
"I feel that it wouldn't be at all like him to do so," said Mrs. Corey, going on to entangle herself in her words, as women often do when their ideas are perfectly clear. "Don't go to reading, please, Bromfield! I am really worried about this matter I must know how much it means. I can't let it go on so. I don't see how you can rest easy without knowing."