Chapter IX

A few minutes before eight he drove up to the cottage where Mamie lived. It was even more terrible than he had imagined it, a crooked little cottage with a funny, sagging porch, the paint peeled off, the lumber turned grey. There had been no attempt to beautify the small grey yard.

As he stepped out of the car Mamie came out on the porch, walked hurriedly toward him. She had on pink, a thin, delicate pink, made very plain. Her complexion looked quite pale, her hair softer and brighter than ever.

She came up to him, put her hand on his arm, drew it back again. The gesture that had been affectation with Sophie became genuine embarrassment here.

“You—can’t—call,” she said nervously. “I told father at dinner. He’s just stepped out. He’d get furious—if he found you here. He—he keeps on harping on what that man told him—about my being seen with you—he says—I’m not in your class—that you don’t mean—aren’t—that I shouldn’t go with you.”

He saw that she was trembling. How soft she was and little. He wouldn’t be cheated out of a ride with her—this evening—hadn’t seen her for a long, long time. How he’d missed her!

“Jump in the car,” he said. “Hurry up, before your father gets back. He’ll never know.”

“I can’t. You don’t know how angry he’d be. Girls don’t ride at night, in Millersville, this way. It will make things worse.”

She drew back.

“You don’t want to go?”

“Oh, I do, I do! You don’t know how much.”

“Then jump in.”

“It wouldn’t be right. You wouldn’t respect me. Other girls—”

“My dear child, you don’t know the world. Other girls go driving at night—and do worse things than that. Only night before last I took a girl out driving—Sophie Redding—Miss Redding and I—”

“I know, but she’s—you know—I told you what I heard.”

“There’s no truth in that. I told you so. Now come on, be a nice girl, jump in. It’s too perfect an evening to waste. We’ll drive down Rock Road. No one will see us.”

“I don’t know—I—”

“Please come. You’ll please me, won’t you?”

He felt bold, masterful, put his hand on her arm. He saw that he had done the wrong thing, been too hasty. She drew away, frightened.

“I—maybe—I’d better not see you any more, ever. That’s what I’d planned—”

“Please come on, won’t you, dear? Don’t talk like that. Come on.”

He let his voice grow tender—he was surprised to find how much he meant the tenderness. What if she wouldn’t go?

She hesitated a moment, then:

“All right,” she nodded, and jumped into the car.

She had ordered her parents to keep away from the front of the house, but she knew them. She was eager to get away before they peered out of the window or slouched out on the porch.

They left Gillen Row and were soon out in the country.

Mamie sighed, a pleasant sigh of happiness.

“I suppose I oughtn’t to be here,” she said. “It’s wrong, I know, but it seems right when I’m with you. I’ve been so lonely lately. It seems wonderful.”

“You’ve missed me a little, then?”

“Missed you—of course.”

The moon came out. They drove along the Sulpulpa River, and the moon rippled a path on the water. Embury stopped the car.

“This is great, isn’t it?” he asked.

“Wonderful. I almost lose my breath at it. I’m that way about scenery—I can’t say much. And to be here, now—”

He looked at her. She seemed almost ethereal in the moonlight, the pale pink of her dress, the soft gleam of her hair.

He put his arm around her, very gently, drew her close to him, held up her chin, looked at her. She was lovely, her fragrant, soft complexion, her big eyes. He kissed her.

She gave a little gasp. But there was no pulling away, none of the “how-dare-yous” which he had feared. As simply as a child she put her arms around his neck, kissed him, gave little whispers of contentment.

“You dear, you dear!” Embury whispered over and over again.

Then she drew away from him, turned her back, broke into a paroxysm of sobbing.

“What’s the matter?” Embury asked, genuinely perplexed.

He hadn’t quite understood her kissing him, though the kisses had been very pleasant. He understood her now least of all.

“I—I shouldn’t have come with you,” she sobbed. “Don’t you see—I—I—let you kiss me—I kissed you—I wanted to kiss you—I’m as much to blame as you—more. It’s wrong. I shouldn’t have come with you—now, you can’t respect me any more. After this you’ll think—”

“Now, now,” he soothed, “don’t carry on this way. Honest, it’s all right. It really is. Of course I respect you, honey. You’re the dearest girl I know. Why—I—love you!”

He stumbled over the word—he had never told a girl that he loved her, before. He was quite sincere, now. Marriage—of course that was different. He knew that. But this little girl—she was a dear—lovely, as she lay in his arms, soft and yielding, her lips against his. Still, now he wanted her to stop crying—he had made her cry—

“Why, dear, kisses aren’t anything, really. Lots of girls—You don’t know the ways of the world, that’s all. Now, cheer up—I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

“It—it was all my fault. I shouldn’t have come. Of course, when I came, you thought—and I—I _wanted_ to kiss you. That’s the worst of it. Only—I did want to come—I never have anything. I’m—only nothing at all—and live in Gillen Row and you’re Marlin Embury—and now—I’ve kissed you.”

He drove her home. All the way home she sobbed softly. There was a light in the little cottage.

“Don’t drive me to the house,” she said. “Father’s home—it’s late—if he saw you—I don’t know what he’d do. I’ll be all right—if I go in alone. My mother will be waiting, too. She’ll keep him from being too angry—if I explain to her. I—I think she’ll understand.”

He let her out at the corner, pressing her hand as he told her good-bye.

“Now don’t you worry,” he said. “I’ll see you to-morrow, dear. A kiss is nothing to worry over, really it isn’t.”

She watched his car as he drove away, sent a tiny little wave of farewell to him as he looked back.

Her mother had gone to bed. Her father was playing cards with three cronies in the dining-room.

“That’s right, come trailing in at all hours—running around with some one else—got some one new?” he growled, as she passed them.

“That’s my business,” she answered curtly.

Her father might have detected a new tone in her voice if he hadn’t been too busy seeing that he got the best of his friends before they took advantage of him.