“And you wouldn’t let her.”
“That I couldn’t let her—with nothing to show for it.”
“But she will have something to show for it—in the end. She knows that as well as I do. Do you suppose for a minute that she doesn’t understand the kind of man she’s dealing with?”
“You mean that––?”
“Rash, dear, no girl who knows as much as this girl knows could help seeing at a glance that she’s got a pigeon to pluck, as the French say, and of course she means to pluck it. You can’t blame her for that, being what she is; but for heaven’s sake let her pluck it in her own way. Don’t be a simpleton. Angels shouldn’t rush in where fools would fear to tread—and you are an angel, Rash, though I suppose I’m the only one in the world who sees it.”
“Thank you, Barbe. I know you feel kindly toward me, and that, as you say, you’re the only one in the world who does. That’s all right, I acknowledge it, and I’m grateful. What I don’t like is to see you taking it for granted that this girl is merely playing a game––”
“Rash, do you remember those two winters I worked in the Bleary Street Settlement? and do you remember that the third winter I said that I’d rather enlist in the Navy that go back to it again? You all thought that I was cynical and hard-hearted, but I’ll tell you now what the trouble was. I went down there thinking I could teach those girls—that I could do them good—and raise them up—and have them call me blessed—and all that. Well, there wasn’t one of them who hadn’t forgotten more than I ever knew—who wasn’t working me when I supposed she was hanging on my wisdom—who wasn’t laughing at me behind my back when I was under the delusion that she was following my good example. And if you’ve got one of them on your hands she’ll fool the eyes out of your head.”
“You think so,” he said, drily. “Then I don’t.”
“In that case there’s no use discussing it any further.”