Here, there, everywhere Mrs. Daquin nodded or flung a cheerful, religiously proper phrase. Jean and Mimi owe all this to me, she was thinking. It was I who brought them into a civilized community. …
It was that summer that Carl Hunter came home. Mr. Hunter told Jean why.
“That boy’s been there at school all these years, spending money and having a good time. I told him if he flunked any more of his studies he would have to come home and work. I guess he thought I was fooling but he’ll see whether I am or not. Either he’s going to come back here and work or else I’m through with him.”
“Aren’t you a little hard on the boy?” Jean ventured to inquire. “He’s young yet—hasn’t found himself—he’ll come around in time. …”
“Come around?” Mr. Hunter snorted. “He’s twenty-three now, and when I was his age I had been working for six years. No, I’m through coddling him and he’s got to strike out for himself or go under. …”
It was at a picnic late in June that Mimi saw Carl again. She remembered the curt manner in which he had greeted her at the party years before and she found on seeing him again that she still resented the cavalier way in which he had acted. She determined to treat him with the same coolness and lack of interest. As he spied her and Hilda a three-piece orchestra began to play in the covered pavilion.
“Hello,” he casually greeted them both. Mimi stiffened, it was the same word he had used five years before.
“How do you do?” she questioned but in a tone that said plainly she did not expect nor did she want an answer to her inquiry.
Carl grinned.
“My! You’re upstagy. Will you dance with me?”