Many places they passed reminded her father of his childhood, and seeing she enjoyed it, he talked on freely. It seemed that he, too, took pleasure in going back over those old days. It had been so many years since he had anyone to talk to about them. Adelaide, his wife, had always been restless when he mentioned his early days and upbringing. She had been a Boston girl and considered herself above him, even though he did bring her more wealth than she ever had before.
It was not until the shades of evening began to drop down and seem to wrap them in more cozily to each other, that Gloria, after quite a silence, ventured hesitantly, "Dad, is it true that all men nowadays–that is all young men nowadays are–well– aren't quite true? I mean, do they all go after–low-down girls and think nothing of it? Even if–they're–going to be married?"
Her father gave her a startled look. "Certainly not!" he said decidedly. Then he stopped short and tried to think what young men of his acquaintance he could be sure of. "Certainly not," he repeated with satisfaction. "I have in mind several who are not in the least that way."
But he suddenly remembered that they were not young men in Gloria's clique. They were plain, hardworking young fellows in his office, and he knew their ways, had had them shadowed before ever he trusted them with important business.
"Whatever put such a question as that into your head?" he asked, turning keen eyes and searching her through the dusk.
"Why, Mother said they all were," said Gloria, struggling to explain. "Mother laughed at me when I said I felt as though Stan had never been mine because of his going up to New York to that girl–" Her voice trailed off into silence, and she turned her eyes to the woods they were passing through.
"Poor child!" said her father tenderly, reaching out a hand to touch hers softly as it guided the wheel. The tone of his voice made Gloria catch her breath as she went on.
"And Mother said that was silly of me. She said all young men were that way, that they had to sow their wild oats and then they settled down, and that I was very disloyal to Stan to feel that way, that all young fellows, especially nowadays, thought nothing of a thing like that. Then I asked her if you did that way when you were young, and she looked kind of funny and smiled and said no, very sharply, that you were ‘different.' But I couldn't quite understand. Dad, I can't help feeling that way about Stan, as if I never had really known him, and as if nothing he ever said to me was true!"
The father's hand was still warm on hers, but he was silent for some seconds, and when he spoke his voice was husky with feeling. "I understand, Gloria dear," he said, speaking slowly. "You were right in your feeling. It was what I felt for you the most, though I was not sure you fully understood what it all meant. But I felt disgraced and outraged for you, dear child, that one who had undertaken to love, honor, and protect you through life should so forget all decency, even though he had been drinking. He had no business to be drinking. That was another thing, Gloria. It didn't sit well with me to trust you with a drinker. You know how I feel about that."
"Yes, I know, Dad, and for that reason somehow I never could drink more than a sip or two. Something inside always made me stop. But Stan could stand a lot, Dad. He never seemed to get silly the way some of the others did. That is one reason why I can't excuse him. Oh, it seems awful of me to be putting this into words even to you. He is dead now, and I suppose I ought to keep still. But Dad, my heart just cried out. I felt as if everything–the very foundations of the earth–were reeling! And then when Mother said I was silly and it was wicked of me to mind about that girl, and when I think of the way they ignored the whole thing at the funeral, I began to think I was all made up wrong inside, and I had to ask you about it. Is Mother right? Do most of them do such things nowadays?"
"No!" said her father again earnestly. "No! But if they did, little girl, you're better off to live out your days alone than marry a man who would be as disloyal to you as Stan has been. It isn't as if there were any question about it, you know. I had that looked into"–he spoke with a voice of deep sadness–"and it was all true and more than the paper stated!"
A little sound broke from her white lips, but she made no comment.
"That is why," went on her father, "I am hoping you will not grieve too deeply over all this. The young man was not worthy of it. He was not thinking of you, his promised bride, when he went up there to see that girl. He was pleasing himself."
Then after an instant he went on again, reluctantly, haltingly, almost shyly. "And you must not think too hardly of your mother either, Glory. She was brought up in a most careful, sheltered way. She really knows little of the evil in the world, and what little she has heard, she has chosen to ignore or not to believe. She has taken up the fashionable way of excusing and condoning the faults of young men and calling them follies rather than sins. Also your mother was not brought up in a religious way as I was, and that makes some difference. I have sometimes thought that she looks down on me as being rather old-fashioned for holding the views that I do–" He paused, thoughtfully, sadly.
"Father, I think I'm old-fashioned, too, in my thinking," said the girl at last. "And do you know, I think Mother would be too if it were only the fashion now to be old-fashioned again."
Then they both laughed, and a tender feeling of sympathy crept into their voices.
Soon after that they came upon a little white farmhouse tucked away under elm trees, winking a friendly light from its windows and showing a sign inviting travelers to stop all night.
"How would you like to stay here to-night?" asked her father. "Or would you rather go on to a good hotel? There's a small city only about ten miles farther on." He got out his map and measured the distance with his eye.
"Oh, let's stay here!" said Gloria. "It looks quiet here, and we might meet someone we knew if we went on to the city."
So they went in and found pleasant quarters for the night, and to her surprise Gloria fell asleep almost as soon as her head touched the pillow.
The next day they went on working north and east, through wooded mountains with narrow dirt roads, deep and dim and silent, where traffic was limited for miles to one farm wagon drawn by an old plow horse, and one ancient flivver. Up and up they climbed till the air grew clearer and colder and the sunshine crisper and lovelier. Gloria began to be interested in all the scenery, a mountain brook rushing musically over great boulders, rambling stone walls that shut in sheep and cows, a glimpse of the sea in the distance, a far city rising picturesquely among the budding spring trees. But they skirted the cities and did not go through them.
And at last Maine.
About the middle of the afternoon, Gloria looked up and asked, "Where are we going, Dad?" It seemed to be the first time the thought had occurred to her.
"Home!" said her father.
"Home?" said Gloria, a kind of consternation coming into her eyes and a cloud darkening the brightness of her face from which the gloom had been slowly disappearing ever since they had started.
"To my home," said her father, "where I lived when I was a child!"
"Oh, how wonderful!" said the girl. "I would love that. Have you been back? Are you sure it is there yet?"
"Yes, several times," said the father gravely. "Once I almost took you and Vanna, but your mother had other plans."
"Oh, I wish you had," said Gloria. "Will it be like the little cottage in the woods where we had lunch yesterday?"
"No," said the man thoughtfully, "it is larger. But the little house where I was born is still standing, down in the meadow. It was used for the hired man and his family after we built the big farmhouse nearer to the road,