“Why are you so good to me—so much more than any other?”
“How should one fail of sympathy,” said I, giving my manner a light turn, “for another so innocent and so ill-used?”
“And it's just sympathy—all sympathy?” demanded Peg, resting her round chin in her little shell of a palm. “Nothing but sympathy?”
“What else should it be?”
“I don't know,” said Peg, shortly. Then she walked slowly across the room and studied a picture. In a moment she gave a word to me over her shoulder: “I may tell you this, Mr. Questioner. There is but one question a man should put to a woman.”
Smiling on her jaunty petulances, I went forward with my writing; she to pulling out the slides of a cabinet. This apartment, I should tell you, was my private workshop of politics wherein I repaired and extended the destinies of the General, and transacted his fame for him. There were a world of history and one president—and say the least of it—constructed in that room.
Peg came presently to my elbow, bringing a trinket of coral. It had been my sister's, and was my mother's before that.
“Is it worth much money?” asked Peg.
“Nothing at all,” I returned.
“And yet you value it highly?”