THE STEADFAST HEART
plained. “I have to be away most of the year, and you’ll forget all about me. While I’m gone somebody else will come along—and you’ll marry him.”
“There’s no need to complain to me about that,” said Lydia. “I don’t send you away to college.” Her irritation began to arise at the note of self-pity in Malcolm’s voice. “You go to school of your own accord, and I’m sure I never asked you to fall in love with me.”
“If you should fall in love with somebody else while I’m gone, I don’t know what I’d do.”
“You’d do nothing at all,” she said sharply.
They had turned again on to Main Street and were passing the bank. Malcolm saw Angus Burke standing inside in conversation with a customer…. Immediately he became savage, vindictive, made so first by Lydia’s conduct, but principally by the sight of the boy he had been taught by his father to hate.
“It might even be that Burke,” he said unwisely, “the way you have him around all the time.”
For once Lydia controlled herself, or perhaps she was so angry that no adequate outbreak was possible. She spoke quietly. “Malcolm,” she said, “it’s none of your business who I marry. Right at this minute, I’d a thousand times rather marry Angus Burke than you. He’s a better
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