“Oh, what are we going to do? What are we going to do?” she moaned, turning her head to the side and flinging an arm across her eyes.
“What is it? What’s the matter? Dear?”
“Eugene—my dear, you’re only a child. I’m so old—a grown woman.”
“You’re only twenty-one,” he said. “There’s only five years’difference. That’s nothing.”
“Oh!” she said. “You don’t know what you’re saying. It’s all the difference in the world.”
“When I’m twenty, you’ll be twenty-five. When I’m twenty-six, you’ll be thirty-one. When I’m forty-eight, you’ll be fifty-three. What’s that?” he said contemptuously. “Nothing.”
“Everything,” she said, “everything. If I were sixteen, and you twenty-one it would be nothing. But you’re a boy and I’m a woman. When you’re a young man I’ll be an old maid; when you grow old I shall be dying. How do you know where you’ll be, what you’ll be doing five years from now?” she continued in a moment. “You’re only a boy—you’ve just started college. You have no plans yet. You don’t know what you’re going to do.”
“Yes, I do!” he yelled furiously. “I’m going to be a lawyer. That’s what they’re sending me for. I’m going to be a lawyer, and I’m going into politics. Perhaps,” he added with gloomy pleasure, “you’ll be sorry then, after I make a name for myself.” With bitter joy he foresaw his lonely celebrity. The Governor’s Mansion. Forty rooms. Alone. Alone.
“You’re going to be a lawyer,” said Laura, “and you’re going everywhere in the world, and I’m to wait for you, and never get married. You poor kid!” She laughed softly. “You don’t know what you’re going to do.”
He turned a face of misery on her; brightness dropped from the sun.
“You don’t care?” he choked. “You don’t care?” He bent his head to hide his wet eyes.
“Oh, my dear,” she said, “I do care. But people don’t live like that. It’s like a story. Don’t you know that I’m a grown woman? At my age, dear, most girls have begun to think of getting
