“That beast! He’s—he’s unspeakable! He’s the worst living animal in America!”
“I shouldn’t be afraid of him,” she answered, quietly.
“The whole thing comes too late in the game, anyway,” broke in Durkin, with a second gesture of disgust. Then he added, more gently: “Good heavens, Frank, I don’t want to see you mixed up with that kind of cur! It wouldn’t be right and fair! It’s infinitely worse than the thing I’m suggesting!”
“After all, we are not so different, he and I,” she responded, with acidulated mildness.
Durkin took her hand in his, with real pain written on his face.
“Don’t talk that way,” he pleaded; “it hurts!”
She smoothed his hair with her free hand, quietly, maternally.
“Then you had rather that I—I borrowed this money from the Van Schaick house?” she asked him.
“It’s the choice of two evils,” he answered her, out of his unhappiness, all his older enthusiasm now burnt down into the ashes of indifferency.
“If only I was sure you could keep your promise,” she said, dreamily, as she studied his face.