“Do you know, Barbara, I was trying to decide just last night what was the matter with me. Now I know you don’t like me, but I think you are fair. Tell me why you suppose I have never even thought of love and marriage and the kind of happiness other girls expect. I’m not so very old, after all! But you are right in one idea. I never, never have dreamed of it for myself. For one thing, no one has ever been in love with me even the least little bit in all my life!”
In spite of the tactlessness of Barbara’s speech actually Eugenia was speaking without the least temper, when ordinarily she was given to showing anger with her companion under the slightest provocation.
In consequence Barbara felt entirely disgusted with herself, and what was worse--ridiculously tongue-tied.
“Oh, I did not mean anything like that,” she stammered. “That is--at least--why, of course you are as nice as anyone when you let yourself be, Eugenia. But you do seem cold, as if you considered other people not exactly worth your attention. And--and----”
Not feeling that she was making out a very good case for herself, Barbara put her duster down and came and sat on a wooden stool near the older girl.
“I am an idiot, Eugenia,” she insisted scornfully. “No wonder Dick Thornton always declares I have never grown up. Besides, I don’t believe you have never had any one in love with you, not even a young girl-and-boy affair. No girl ever lives to be as old as you are without----”
Again Barbara stopped short, biting her lips.
But Eugenia only shook her head and laughed. “I am the exception that proves the rule. Besides, my dear, you came from the west and not New England, and you weren’t, as people have so often said of me, ‘born an old maid.’ But never mind, I won’t ask any more embarrassing questions.”
Eugenia tried to speak lightly, half amused and half hurt by the expression of chagrin on Barbara Meade’s face.
“By the way,” she added, in an effort to change the subject, “how is Dick Thornton? I have been meaning to ask you what you have heard from him.”
This time the younger girl flushed, but so slightly that Eugenia did not appear to notice it.
“I have heard nothing at all,” she returned honestly. “But I don’t suppose Dick is better, as Mildred and Nona have both had letters and say there was nothing important in them.”