At the side door of the Trench home, the girl had a sharp tilt with
her sister, who had come back from the ride in time to see--and
interpret--the tear-stained face. Sylvia would write to her mother.
She would not continue to sponsor a love affair for a girl who had
no sense. She would not play chaperone at long range. If Hal had any
breeding, he would invite her to go with them.
“Oh, that’s the rub!” Eileen sneered.
“No, that isn’t the rub--and I might have known you wouldn’t appreciate
anything I tried to do for you. If you keep on, the way you’re going,
you’ll have Hal so sick and tired of you that he’ll be glad to get out
of reach of the telephone. I tried to make you a little indifferent to
him--and got insolence for my pains. If you had a grain of policy, you
wouldn’t let him see that you are daft about him. That’s no way to hold
a man’s love. I kept Syd Schubert dangling at my belt for four years by
letting him half way think I cared.”
“Yes, and you lost Tom Henderson by the same tactics. Tom wanted whole
hog or none, and you didn’t get on to the fact till he’d got sick of
you.”
“Don’t, for heaven’s sake, use such vulgar expressions. Hal is such a
gentleman, I don’t see how he stands you. Eileen, I wish you would see
that I am doing this for your own good--and to please mamma. I have had
experience, and I know what works with a man, nine times out of ten.
I’ll hold Oliver Penrose to the end of the world ... by keeping him
guessing. Look at the way mamma has kept papa on his knees for nearly
twenty-eight years.”
“You think that a fine thing?” the girl flared. “If you pattern your
life after mamma’s, at her age you’ll be as hard and cruel--”
“You outrageous, you impudent--” Words failed. “How do you dare speak
that way about your parents? And Theo’s almost as bad. At your age, I
never dreamed of being disrespectful, or saying a word back when mamma
reproved me.”
“Oh, Sylvia, come off! Mamma says she never talked back to her mother.
And then she forgets, and tells the impudent things she used to
say--and how her grandmother Larimore took her part against all the
rest of the family. But there’s Hal, tooting his horn for me. I’ll ask
him to invite you to ride with us some evening next week. I’m sure
he’ll be charmed!”