"Ah!" exclaimed Miss Jessup, "then mine will be the only statement."
"I hope so," he answered. "It will be if I have any influence."
"Oh, then," she said, "you have done me a favor, after all."
"It won't balance the favor you will have done me," he replied, "if you do your best in this matter. You see, I know what your best is, and I depend on it."
"Well," she said, "it is very kind of you to say so, and I will try to prove myself worth depending on, but"—And she scribbled a little in her note-book. "I don't mind telling you that the reason that is strongest in my mind is quite an unprofessional one. It is the one you spoke of just now. It is because I am a woman, too."
"Then she is safe," he returned. "Nothing could make her safer. And I am grateful to you beforehand, and I hope you will let me say so."
And they shook hands and parted the best of friends, notwithstanding that the interview had dwindled down into proportions quite likely to be regarded by the public as entirely insignificant.