"Do you imagine I don't understand?" she went on. "I have not lived with my daughter Grace for almost a quarter of a century without knowing her rather well. Of course it was she who telephoned you. Of course she asked you to find and burn that letter. What else did she say? Where is she now? There is a vital reason why her brother and I should know. We have been anxious about her all evening. I am afraid you noticed it."
I admitted that I had. "I'm sorry," I added. "But I can't explain. I really can't say anything. I wish I could. I'm sure you will understand."
Mrs. Morris studied me in silence for a moment. The glint in her gray eyes deepened. Her jaw-line took on a sudden firmness, oddly like that of her son.
"Of course I understand," she said. "It's girlish loyalty. You think you must stand by Grace—that you must respect her confidence. But can't you believe that Grace's mother and brother may be wiser than she is?"
This, to one only two years emancipated from family rule, had a familiar sound. Instinctively I resented it.
"Aren't you forgetting," I asked, gently, "that Miss Morris is really a woman of the world? It isn't as if she were merely a school-girl, you know, with immature judgment."
Mrs. Morris sighed. "You don't understand," she murmured. "You may feel differently when you talk to my son. I see that we must be very frank with you."
With an effort she talked of other things for a few moments, until Godfrey joined us. His face brightened as he entered, and darkened when his mother told him briefly what had occurred. Without preface, he went at the heart of the tangle, in as direct and professional a manner as if he were giving me an assignment in the Searchlight office.
"It all means just this, Miss Iverson," he said. "Grace has fallen in love with an utterly worthless fellow. He has no family, no position; but those things don't matter so much. Perhaps she has, as she says, enough of them for two. What does matter is that he comes of bad stock—rotten stock—that he's a bounder and worse."
That surprised me, and I showed it.