“Don’t make me laugh, please; my face is burned,” he pleaded in mock irony. “Do you think that’s all we know, or think of, or possess—our horsemanship? We have hearts, and minds, such as they are—and souls, I hope. It was of these things that I was thinking. I was thinking, too, that we Penningtons demand a higher standard in women than is customary nowadays. We are a little old-fashioned, I guess. We want the blood of our horses and the minds of our women pure. Here is a case in point—I can tell you, because you don’t know the girl and never will. She was the daughter of a friend of Cousin William—our New York cousin. She was spending the winter in Pasadena, and we had her out here on Cousin William’s account. She was a pippin of a looker, and I suppose she was all right morally; but she didn’t have a clean mind. I discovered it about the first time I talked with her alone; and then Eva asked me a question about something that she couldn’t have known about at all except through this girl. I didn’t know what to do. She was a girl, and so I couldn’t talk about her to any one, not even my father or mother; but I didn’t want her around Eva. I wondered if I was just a narrow prig, and if, after all, there was nothing that any one need take exception to in the girl. I got to analyzing the thing, and I came to the conclusion that I would be ashamed of mother and Eva if they talked or thought along such lines. Consequently, it wasn’t right to expose Eva to that influence. That was what I decided, and I don’t just think I was right—I know I was.”
“And what did you do?” Shannon asked in a very small voice.
“I did what under any other circumstances would have been unpardonable. I went to the girl and asked her to make some excuse that would terminate her visit. It was a very hard thing to do; but I would do more than that—I would sacrifice my most cherished friendship—for Eva.”
“And the girl—did you tell her why you asked her to go?”
“I didn’t want to, but she insisted, and I told her.”
“Did she understand?”
“She did not.”
They were silent for some time.
“Do you think I did wrong?” he asked.
“No. There is mental virtue as well as physical. It is as much your duty to protect your sister’s mind as to protect her body.”