“Well, nearabout. He has a high-falutin way of talking but that was the amount of it. He knows which side his bread is buttered. He ain’t nobody’s fool. I’ll say that for him.”
“I can’t say that you make him out a very pleasant character,” Nancy said. “But he’s an artist, Hitty. Artists don’t react to the same set of laws that we do. They’re different somehow.”
“They ain’t so different, when it comes to that,” Hitty said dryly. “They won’t take a hint, but the harder you kick ’em the better for all concerned. Don’t you go sticking up for that low-down loon. He ain’t worth it.”
“I suppose he isn’t,” Nancy said; “he’s a pretty poor apology for a man as we understand men, Hitty, but there’s something about him,—a power and a charm that you can’t altogether discount, even though you have lost every particle of your respect for him.”
“He has a kind of way,” Hitty conceded, “but I ain’t one o’ them kind o’ women that hankers much for the society of a man that’s once shown himself to be more of a sneak than the average.”
“I don’t think that I am, either,” Nancy said gravely.
“I want to be your little girl always,” Sheila announced, “if I may talk now, may I? And Monsieur Dick’s, too, and sit on a cushion and sew a fine seam, and feast upon strawberries, sugar and cream. I want to see Monsieur Dick. Where is he?”
“He’s been sick,” Nancy said, “but he’s getting better now, I think. I haven’t seen him for some time, myself.”
“Don’t you love him very much and aren’t you very sorry?”