“Such as—”
“Well, he HATES the hospital, of course. As if, even if I meant to marry him, it wouldn’t be years before he can be ready.”
“Do you think you are quite fair to Joe?”
“I haven’t promised to marry him.”
“But he thinks you mean to. If you have quite made up your mind not to, better tell him, don’t you think? What—what are these idiotic notions?”
Sidney considered, poking a slim finger into the little holes in the box.
“You can see how stupid he is, and—and young. For one thing, he’s jealous of you!”
“I see. Of course that is silly, although your attitude toward his suspicion is hardly flattering to me.”
He smiled up at her.
“I told him that I had asked you to bring me here to-day. He was furious. And that wasn’t all.”
“No?”
“He said I was flirting desperately with Dr. Wilson. You see, the day we went through the hospital, it was hot, and we went to Henderson’s for soda-water. And, of course, Joe was there. It was really dramatic.”
K. Le Moyne was daily gaining the ability to see things from the angle of the Street. A month ago he could have seen no situation in two people, a man and a girl, drinking soda-water together, even with a boy lover on the next stool. Now he could view things through Joe’s tragic eyes. And there as more than that. All day he had noticed how inevitably the conversation turned to the young surgeon. Did they start with Reginald, with the condition of the morning-glory vines, with the proposition of taking up the quaint paving-stones and macadamizing the Street, they ended with the younger Wilson.
Sidney’s active young brain, turned inward for the first time in her life, was still on herself.
“Mother is plaintively resigned—and Aunt Harriet has been a trump. She’s going to keep her room. It’s really up to you.”
“To me?”
“To your staying on. Mother trusts you absolutely. I hope you noticed that you got one of the apostle spoons with the custard she sent up to you the other night. And she didn’t object to this trip to-day. Of course, as she said herself, it isn’t as if you were young, or at all wild.”
In spite of himself, K. was rather startled. He felt old enough, God knew, but he had always thought of it as an age of the spirit. How old did this child think he was?
“I have promised to stay on, in the capacity of watch-dog, burglar-alarm, and occasional recipient of an apostle spoon in a dish of custard. Lightning-conductor, too—your mother says she isn’t afraid of storms if there is a man in the house. I’ll stay, of course.”
The thought of his age weighed on him. He rose to his feet and threw back his fine shoulders.
“Aunt Harriet and your mother and Christine and her husband-to-be, whatever his name is—we’ll be a happy family. But, I warn you, if I ever hear of Christine’s husband getting an apostle spoon—”
She smiled up at him. “You are looking very grand to-day. But you have grass stains on your white trousers. Perhaps Katie can take them out.”
Quite suddenly K. felt that she thought him too old for such frivolity of dress. It put him on his mettle.
“How old do you think I am, Miss Sidney?”
She considered, giving him, after her kindly way, the benefit of the doubt.
“Not over forty, I’m sure.”
“I’m almost thirty. It is middle age, of course, but it is not senility.”
She was genuinely surprised, almost disturbed.
“Perhaps we’d better not tell mother,” she said. “You don’t mind being thought older?”
“Not at all.”
Clearly the subject of his years did not interest her vitally, for she harked back to the grass stains.
“I’m afraid you’re not saving, as you promised. Those are new clothes, aren’t they?”
“No, indeed. Bought years ago in England—the coat in London, the trousers in Bath, on a motor tour. Cost something like twelve shillings. Awfully cheap. They wear them for cricket.”
That was a wrong move, of course. Sidney must hear about England; and she marveled politely, in view of his poverty, about his being there. Poor Le Moyne floundered in a sea of mendacity, rose to a truth here and there, clutched at luncheon, and achieved safety at last.
“To think,” said Sidney, “that you have really been across the ocean! I never knew but one person who had been abroad. It is Dr. Max Wilson.”
Back again to Dr. Max! Le Moyne, unpacking sandwiches from a basket, was aroused by a sheer resentment to an indiscretion.
“You like this Wilson chap pretty well, don’t you?”
“What do you mean?”
“You talk about him rather a lot.”
