"Perhaps not, but how could you consistently call me weak to yield to wine, if you are to be helpful and kind one minute, and scornful the next? You said you would help me to win over Miss Faith, and I thought you also tacitly promised me help in another way. Are you going back on everything, now?"
"No, indeed!" cried Hope, fully comprehending at last. ("So he talked Faith over, thinking it was I—and she let him think so—sly puss! I didn't believe it was in her!") Then aloud, "I will do what I can, of course, but Faith, though seeming so gentle, has a strain of obstinacy—"
"Yes, you hinted at that before."
("Indeed!" laughed the girl inside, "how well she did it!")
"But she is so fond of you, and I long to be friends with both."
"Yes?" interpolated Hope, with an indifferent accent.
"Yes," strongly; "but if I can't have her friendship, I still plead for yours. You can help me—you have helped me already."
"But if she won't listen to me?" queried the girl, keeping her amused eyes lowered.
"Then give it up, and I will bear her displeasure; but don't double it by adding your own."
"Then, possibly, I had better not say anything—"