With a shrug and an irritable gesture Keith settled back in his chair.
"I don't care to discuss it, Susan. I don't wish to see ANY one. We'll let it go at that, if you please," he said.
"But I don't please!" Susan was in the room now, close to Keith's chair. Her face was quivering with emotion. "Keith, won't you listen to reason? It ain't like you a mite to sit back like this an' refuse to see a nice little body like Dorothy Parkman, what's been so kind—"
"Susan!" Keith was sitting erect again. His face was white, and carried a stern anguish that Susan had never seen before. "I don't care to discuss Miss Parkman with you or with anybody else. Neither do I care to discuss the fact that I thoroughly understand, of course, that you, or she, or anybody else, can fool me into believing anything you please; and I can't—help myself."
"No, no, Keith, don't take it like that—please don't!"
"Is there any other way I CAN take it? Do you think 'Miss Stewart' could have made such a fool of me if I'd had EYES to see Dorothy Parkman?"
"But she was only tryin' to HELP you, an'—"
"I don't want to be 'helped'!" stormed the boy hotly. "Did it ever occur to you, Susan, that I might sometimes like to HELP somebody myself, instead of this everlastingly having somebody help me?"
"But you do help. You help me," asserted Susan feverishly, working her nervous fingers together. "An' you'd help me more if you'd only let folks in to see you, an'—"
"All right, all right," interrupted Keith testily. "Let them in. Let everybody in. I don't care. What's the difference? But, please, PLEASE, Susan, stop talking any more about it all now."