"I am a bit homesick, and I haven't any home. If Dad hadn't married a second time, I believe he would still love me a bit. But his wife doesn't. And so here I am--and as restless as ever--seeking something--always seeking.
"And now, once more, don't break the heart of the new little girl. I don't need to warn you not to break your own. You are the greatest example of the truth of 'he who loves and runs away will live to love another day.' Oh, Georgie-Porgie, will you ever love any woman enough to rise with her to the heights?
"Perhaps there aren't any heights for you or me. But I should like to think there were. Different hilltops, of course, so that we could wave across. We shall never climb together, Georgie. Perhaps we are too much alike to help each other up the hills. We need stronger props.
"Tell me about Flora. Is she really ill? If she is, I'll come. But I'd rather not.
"I hope you won't read this aloud to Oscar. You might, you know, and it wouldn't do. He would hate to believe that he'd be happier buying things at a delicatessen, and he wouldn't believe it. But it's true, just as it is true that you would be happy shining boots and making love to the maids like a character in Dickens.
"Come on up, and we'll motor to Boston on Sunday afternoon and we'll go to Trinity; I want somebody to be good with me, Georgie, and there are so many of the other kind.
George knew that he ought to go, but he was not ready yet to run away. He was having the time of his life, and as for Becky, he would teach her how to play the game.
"I wish she would come home," young Paine said one morning to his mother.
"Why?" Caroline Paine was at her desk with her mind on the dinner. "Why, Randy?"
Mrs. Paine headed her list with gumbo soup. "Do you think he goes to see Becky?"
"Does a duck swim? Of course he goes there to see her, and he's turning her head."
"He is enough to turn any woman's head. He has nice eyes." Mrs. Paine left the topic as negligible, and turned to more important things.
"Randy, would you mind picking a few pods of okra for the soup? Susie is so busy and Bob and Jefferson are both in the field."
"Certainly, Mother," his cool answer gave no hint of the emotions which were seething within him. Becky's fate was hanging in the balance, and his mother talked of okra! He had decided some weeks ago that boarders were disintegrating--and that a mother was not a mother who had three big meals a day on her mind.