"Just a minute till I look this over," he remarked to Brad as they emerged onto the street again.
The letter had no salutation and no signature. It simply began and ended.
"I said I believed no one had any right to tell me what I could and could not do. But people do tell me, just the same, and I am occasionally weak enough to submit to them.
"Which is by way of announcing that I cannot come this time, Jock Hamill."
"What's up?" queried Brad. "You look suddenly sunk."
Jock tucked the gray envelope thoughtfully into his pocket, where it lay close to the unopened lavender one that was Molly's. "I am," he said. "My girl can't come to the game."
"That's too bad."
"Right. I'm sorry as hell."
He made these replies mechanically. His thoughts were absorbed not so much with the fact that Yvonne wasn't coming as with the words in which she had couched her refusal. "People do tell me, and I am occasionally weak enough to submit to them"—now what did that mean? Who could tell Yvonne what to do? Who had the right to dictate to her? A parent? Somehow Jock knew it was not a parent. A husband, then? He became possessed of a dismaying notion that Yvonne might be married.
Brad was speaking. "What did you say?" Jock asked absently.
"I said, you'd better take Eunice to the game, then," Brad repeated.
"Sure, glad to," said Jock. (But if so, wouldn't Yvonne have told him?)
