Sound of the Trumpet by Grace Livingston Hill

selfish, willful child.”
    “But, Mother, I think he believes that is the modern way, and that you and I are old-fashioned. That is what makes it all so hopeless. Not hopeless either, Mother, for I do not feel it matters very much if he is like that. Oh, he is an old friend, I know, and one hates to lose the companion of one’s childhood. But he isn’t important to me, really, anymore.”
    “Are you sure, my dear? Oh, I would be so glad if I could be certain that that is true! For nothing that I can think of would seem more terrible to me than to have you married to a young man with such standards. Or brokenhearted because he had turned out to be what he evidently has become. I used to be so glad that you had a boyfriend like Victor Vandingham, but now I am greatly thankful we have discovered what he is before it is forever too late! Oh, my dear!”
    “Well, now Emi—I beg your pardon, Mother Kingsley—just what fault do you have to find with me? What’s the matter with me that you’re making such a scene about? You certainly put on a dramatic act in the tearoom. I didn’t know either of you were capable of that. I thought you were too well bred.”
    It was Victor Vandingham’s voice that drawled into the conversation lazily. They had not heard him coming. He had just walked into the house, much as he used to do in the old days when he was a mere child, listened a moment to locate the low voices he could hear, and then walked straight to the library door. The door had opened stealthily, and he stood just behind Mrs. Kingsley’s chair before he spoke. Then he calmly stalked over to an unoccupied chair near the fire and slumped down into it gracefully, his hat in his hand swinging carelessly, very nonchalantly, and he looked from the mother to the daughter and back again.
    “Well, really!” said Mrs. Kingsley, springing to her feet, her pleasant eyes fairly snapping with indignation, her whole body expressing dignity and utter outrage. “Since when did you start walking into people’s homes and interrupting private conversations? Haven’t you humiliated us enough today without this? Of course, in your childhood days, when you were a friend of the family, you had the privilege of walking in unannounced, but I consider that by your conversation this afternoon you forfeited that right. I certainly am disappointed in you, Victor, and—ashamed of you!”
    “Now what did I do, I ask you? Didn’t I ask your daughter to marry me? What is humiliating about that?”
    “You announced to my daughter that you were
going
to marry her,” said Mrs. Kingsley. “That was not the way an offer of marriage is usually made. Especially between young people who have seen very little of each other for nearly four years and who are both rather young to be even considering marriage at present. But even if you were not so young, you certainly know that there are ways of conducting a suit for a girl’s hand that you have entirely ignored. Why would you think any girl would want to marry you with such an invitation? The most primitive savage would know better than that.”
    A wide, devilish grin overspread the handsome face of the boy.
    “Oh, you mean all that antique junk about love? Why, where have you been that you don’t know that that kind of mush is entirely out of date? You’ve known me for years. You know what my family is, and that I am financially able to support your daughter in a style even better than she has been accustomed to all her life. What’s the idea of your giving me the high hat that way? Haven’t I a right to demand certain things of the girl I’ve decided to marry? You’ve kept her down to your own notions so long that she really doesn’t have a mind of her own, and you’ve made her old-fashioned to the extent that she can scarcely hold her own with young people of her age. I say it’s a shame, and I was only trying to be frank and make you understand. But if you can’t see it that way, just call