The next scene in this little drama of conflicting ideas and their results takes us to a small park where Jack led Betty to a bench and sat down beside her. Neither wore any hats and the late afternoon sunshine fell upon Betty’s gold locks and Jack’s dark ones through the Maytime green of boughs above them. They had talked of incidental school matters on the short ride, when Betty had preferred the park to being entertained at a tea room.

At once Jack had began to tell Betty how he had just heard about her going home, through the colored maid who had looked from a downstairs window and had seen Betty outside, “flyin’ along as if de ol’ Nick hise’f was afteh her!” Jack’s mouth showed some mirth as he quoted the dialect.

“That was the way I felt, Jack. Honestly this is no joke. I was frightened about going home, but I was more scared to stay, Jack. I’ve no doubt but you intended to have me taken home safely. I went to speak to you about matters but I saw that you were in no condition, or mood, for that matter. Why, Jack, I never was where anybody was intoxicated before, and I think it was terrible!”

“Oh, Betty, it wasn’t as bad as that. You’re just a little goose about it. You’ll get used to it.”

“Never. Do you think I’d risk having my senses half gone, or all gone, and not know, scarcely, what was happening?—besides getting so you have to have it! And how did it happen that you didn’t know I was gone? Just because you didn’t know what was happening.”

“Ye-ah. That’s the reason I wouldn’t come out to your house. I thought your father might meet me with a gun.”

“Please don’t joke about it.”

Betty went on to explain that if there had been any older people there at the time, she would have asked to be sent home and made “proper leave-takings.” She described briefly her trip home, her satin slippers muddy from the “April shower in May,” her talk with her mother, and what her parents thought about the matter.

“You see, Jack, in the little town we came from there was a nice boy next door that we just saw going to pieces little by little and having his life ruined and breaking his mother’s heart—losing his jobs—I imagine you see more what drinking does to people in a country town where you know everybody. Why, I’d be the most thankful friend you’ve got, Jack, if I thought you’d let it alone!”

“Honestly, Betty, I don’t know whether I could or not.” Jack was serious enough as Betty summed up the situation from her viewpoint. He folded his arms and looked down at the grass where a little chipping sparrow was hopping about. Then suddenly his mood changed. “Aw, Betty, come now. It isn’t as bad as you think. Why, we’ve always had liquor of some sort around. Father’s had it all his life and it never hurt him. (Oh, hasn’t it? Betty thought.)

“I was just celebrating my birthday a little too much—that was all. Let’s forget it. I’ll make it up to you. Mother’s provoked about it and I think she was going to call up your mother today; but whatever our folks think we can be friends, can’t we?”

“Jack, as I told you when we began to talk about this, I looked forward to that party, and I did and do appreciate all that your mother and father did to make everything lovely for all of us. It was a wonderful entertainment, dinner, the pretty house, everything, and I don’t for a minute think you are responsible for what the other boys brought in in their flasks, or for the way some of them behaved. And you can count upon me, Jack, not to tell about those things at school, or anywhere else, for that matter.

“But to be special friends or see much of each other—we just can’t, that’s all. We are too different. You think things are all right that I—well, you see how hard it is for us even to talk about them.” Betty stopped, for Jack was frowning.

“How about that picnic that we fixed up that night at dinner? You said you’d go. I promise you that I’ll not have a drop of anything with me.”

Betty had all she could do to keep steady. Jack did like her, and his eyes were so distressed. “Oh, I’d love to say it was all right, Jack, because you’ve been such a good friend; but even if I could tell you that I would go, Mother and Father would never let me go anywhere with that crowd again.”

“How about me alone, with a different crowd?”

“The same, Jack—I’m sorry.” Betty, too, looked distressed.

“I don’t think you care very much, Betty.” Jack jumped up. “I’ll drive you home unless you think that your parents will think you quite contaminated by the ride!”

“Would you rather drive me home, or not, Jack? We could easily say good-bye here. The street car line, only a block away, takes me right out home.” Betty would really have preferred to take the street car, but Jack vetoed that.

“I’m sore enough over all this,” said he, “but I’d rather take you home. I’m not a perfect bounder, and if you like I’ll go into the house and talk to your mother.”

“I wish you would,” said Betty, dreading it, however.

But when the roadster drew up before the Lee home, Jack courteously accompanied Betty to the front door, but said that he had changed his mind about coming in. “I may do it some other time,” said he.

Betty, just inside the hall door, turned to see Jack hurrying out to his car, starting it and rolling off with never a look backwards. She sighed, shut the door and went to ask her mother if Mrs. Huxley had telephoned. She had not. “It’s all over, Mother, my talk with Jack. Did you see him bring me home in his roadster? It’s the last time, of course, but I can’t tell you about what we said just now.” To Betty’s own surprise her voice shook and at her mother’s sympathetic look the tears came.

“I think I’ve got to go off and cry,” she said in a squeaky tone and as she fled toward her room she heard her mother say that she would keep Doris away if she came home too soon. One lovely thing about Mother was that she wasn’t curious! She could wait until her children felt like telling her things.

Betty, however, had some repentant thoughts. It would have been better, perhaps, to have braved the opposition, or criticism, or disagreeable circumstances at the party, as her father had suggested, to telephone to him at home, rather than to have risked coming home so late and alone. A city was no place for that. But if she wrote an apology to her hostess it might “mess things up worse than ever,” she concluded. Hereafter she would try to “keep her head,” but also never to get caught in such a situation.