“Oh! Ebner, and you really think, dear, it’s—it isn’t true; that——”
He flung himself into a chair with an easy laugh. He gave her to understand that she was not supposed to have his long, worldly experience in life, but whatever truth there was in it he’d find out for her and tell her.
“If there is any truth in it,” he remarked quite gravely, “I’ll go to him as a friend and find out—maybe I can help him. I wa’n’t never known to desert a friend in trouble, Em, and you know it.”
“I know, dear,” she said meekly. “Ebner, I’d go to him. I want you to express to him my sympathy,” she added, subsiding wearily in the corner of the sofa. “Our deepest sympathy. I can’t believe it true of him—say what they may.”
“Go to him? Well, now, little woman, that’s just what I intended to do. Thinks I, I’ll go to him, man to man—a friend in need, Em.”
“I know, dear. You’ll do what is best.”
“Don’t I always do what is best?” he smiled, and went over and planted a sound kiss on her flushed cheek.
For a brief moment she held his long hand in hers, pressing it affectionately.
“Yes, dear,” she murmured, “you always do. It’s girlie I’m thinking about. If you only could have seen her, Ebner.”
“Well, now!” he drawled. “I ain’t such a thick-head but what I can imagine it did shake her up considerable. You know how girls be, Em. Slightest thing upsets ’em. Last thing they do is to stop and reason. Take a fact always fer granted without divinin’ the source.”