She pictured, and ridiculed, herself as walking up
to him and remarking, "I am sick with the Village Virus. Will you please
tell me what people are saying and playing in New York?" She pictured,
and groaned over, the expression of Kennicott if she should say,
"Why wouldn't it be reasonable for you, my soul, to ask that complete
stranger in the brown jersey coat to come to supper tonight?"
She brooded, not looking back. She warned herself that she was probably
exaggerating; that no young man could have all these exalted qualities.
Wasn't he too obviously smart, too glossy-new? Like a movie actor.
Probably he was a traveling salesman who sang tenor and fancied himself
in imitations of Newport clothes and spoke of "the swellest business
proposition that ever came down the pike." In a panic she peered at him.
No! This was no hustling salesman, this boy with the curving Grecian
lips and the serious eyes.
She rose after the service, carefully taking Kennicott's arm and smiling
at him in a mute assertion that she was devoted to him no matter what
happened.
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