Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Silent Sam and other stories.djvu/47

Rh of understanding it himself. He had been influenced by some one. She set herself to find out who it was.

She asked: "Are yuh goin' out to-night?"

He accepted the question with relief. "I thought I would—a little while. I 'll be back early." He sat with his elbows on the table. "I promised I 'd see some one."

She turned her back craftily before she asked: "Can't yuh bring him here?"

"Well, not very easy," he said. "It 's a girl."

He tried to give it in a matter-of-fact tone, but he did not succeed. She tried to receive it in a matter-of-fact manner, and she was more successful. She kept her back to him and continued with her work, only glancing at the shawl with her lips tightened. A girl!

It was her opinion that every girl in the town was a designing hypocrite who was bent upon flattering Larry into marrying her so that she might not have to work for a living. Not one of the whole useless set would know how to cook for him. Not one would wash or mend for him. Not one would be able to do anything but spend his money in clothes for herself and ruin his digestion with stuff bought at delicatessen counters, and with her folly and extravagance worry him to death.

It is a mortifying thing to raise a boy to the lovable helplessness of manhood only to have him taken advantage of by one of your own sex. She said angrily: "Are y' ashamed to show her?"