"Joy and rapture!" she said. "Did you warn him I am to drive it?"
"I did. He suggests that Graham give you some lessons."
"Graham!"
"Why not?"
"He'll be bored to insanity. That's all. You--you didn't suggest it, did
you, daddy?"
With all her adoration of her father, Delight had long recognized under
his real spirituality a certain quality of worldly calculation. That,
where it concerned her, it was prompted only by love did not make her
acceptance of it easier.
"Certainly not," said the rector, stiffly.
"Graham's changed, you know. He used to be a nice little kid. But
he's--I don't know what it is. Spoiled, I suppose."
"He'll steady down, Delight."
She looked up at him with clear, slightly humorous eyes.
"Don't get any queer ideas about Graham Spencer and me, Daddy," she
said. "In the first place, I intend to choose my own husband. He's to
look as much as possible like you, but a trifle less nose. And in the
second place, after I've backed the car into a telegraph pole; and
turned it over in a ditch, Graham Spencer is just naturally going to
know I am no woman to tie to."
She got up and smiled at him.
"Anyhow, I wouldn't trust him with the communion service," she added,
and walking out onto the floor, blew shrilly on her whistle. The rector
watched her with growing indignation. These snap judgments of youth!
The easy damning of the young! They left no room for argument. They
condemned and walked away, leaving careful plans in ruin behind them.
And Delight, having gone so far, went further. She announced that
evening at dinner that she would under no circumstances be instructed by
Graham Spencer. Her mother ventured good-humored remonstrance.
"The way to learn to drive a car," said Delight, "is to get into it and
press a few things, and when it starts, keep on going. You've got to
work it out for yourself."
And when Clayton, calling up with his usual thoughtfulness that evening,
offered Graham as instructor, she refused gratefully but firmly.
"You're a dear to think of it," she said, "and you're a dear to have
given Daddy the car. But I'm just naturally going to fight it out in my
own way if it takes all winter."
Natalie, gathering her refusal from Clayton's protest, had heaved a sigh
of relief. Not that she objected to Delight Haverford. She liked her as
much as she liked and understood any young girl, which was very little.
But she did not want Graham to marry. To marry would be to lose him.
And again, watching Clayton's handsome head above his newspaper, she
reflected that Graham was all she had.