“What do you take me for? There was a time that I did not know which girl you cared for most.”
A strange, inscrutable smile flitted over Frank Merriwell’s fine face. Perhaps there had been a time when he was not sure in his own heart which he cared for most.
“But,” Jack went on, “I reasoned it all out, and I knew at last that you preferred Elsie.”
Did he know? He might have thought so, but what man knows all the secrets of another’s heart?
“I saw that you were fond of Inza, proud to be her friend, ready to fight for her to the last gasp, ready to do anything for her sake, but you did not love her.”
Had the Virginian read Frank’s heart better than Frank himself?
“Then,” Jack went on, as they turned up Broadway, “in my estimation, Elsie was better adapted for you in every way. It doesn’t seem right that Hodge should come between you, and I will not believe she really cares for him.”
“About that I am not certain, but my faith in him is absolute. I know he would make any true, womanly girl a most devoted husband—that is, a girl he really and truly loved.”
“Perhaps so, but there is a reckless streak in him, and something might send him to the dogs at any time.”
“Just so,” nodded Merry. “Knowing that, I was not the fellow to revile him and cause him to do something rash. It is to be a fair and open show, with no underhand methods.”