Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Silent Sam and other stories.djvu/60

48 "What 's become o' the girl that yuh don't take her?" "Her," he said bitterly. "We 're not good enough for her."

"An' why not?" she cried.

"I don' know," he answered, in a tone hard and even. "And I don't care."

"There now!" Mrs. Regan addressed herself aloud. "What d' yuh think o' that?" She stared at him, turning in her seat, with such an expression of bewilderment that he asked sourly: "What 's the matter?"

"Nothin'," she said, collecting herself. "Nothin' at all."

But throughout the silence in which they finished their car-ride, she kept saying to herself in her thoughts: "What d' yuh think o' that? An' me thinkin' he was mad at me an' goin' to leave me fer the girl.… What d' yuh think o' that? The likes o' her! The likes o' her to be puttin' him down! Him—that was worth a dozen of her. It 's enough to make the saints in heaven laugh at their prayers— Glory be to Peter! What d' yuh think o' that?" Amazement and indignation alternated with amazement and relief. She was not going to lose Larry—but the likes of her! Not good enough for her. Did anyone ever hear anything to equal that? The fool of a girl! What were they coming to nowadays—the girls—any way? She could have chuckled with contempt for them, if it had not been that Larry would have heard. Larry was evidently in no frame of mind to hear chuckles.