She was in an awful hurry.
"Molly, dear," she said, with her words literally falling over
themselves, "Tom says you'll give us some of your dinner left-overs to
take for lunch in the Hup, for we are going way out to Wayne County to
see some awfully fine tobacco he has heard is there. I don't want to ask
mother, for she won't let me go; and his mother, if he asked her, will
begin to talk about us. Tom said come to you and you would understand
and fix it quick. He said kiss you for him and tell you he said 'Come on
in, the water's fine.' Isn't he a joke?" And we kissed and laughed and
packed a basket, and kissed and laughed again for good-by. I felt amused
and happy for a few minutes--and also deserted. It's a very good thing
for a woman's conceit to find out how many of her lovers are just
make-believes. I may have needed Tom's deflection.
Anyway, I don't know when I ever was so glad to see anybody as I was
when Mrs. Johnson came in the front door. A woman who has proved to her
own satisfaction that marriage is a failure is at times a great tonic to
other women. I needed a tonic badly this morning and I got it.
"Well, from all my long experience, Molly," she said as she seated
herself and began to hem a dish-towel with long steady stabs, "husbands
are just stick candy in different jars.
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