“But you said you had the best news in the world for me,” she laughed, looking at him from under her lashes.
“So I have.”
“What is it?”
“Harry.”
The girl's face clouded and her lips quivered. Then she sat bolt upright.
“I won't hear a word about him. He's broken his promise to me and I will never trust him again. If I thought you'd come to talk about Harry, I wouldn't have come down.”
St. George lay back in his chair, shrugged his shoulders, stole a look at her from beneath his bushy eyebrows, and said with an assumed dignity, a smile playing about his lips:
“All right, off goes his head—exit the scoundrel. Much as I could do to keep him out of Jones Falls this morning, but of course now it's all over we can let Spitfire break his neck. That's the way a gentleman should die of love—and not be fished out of a dirty stream with his clothes all bespattered with mud.”
“But he won't die for love. He doesn't know what love means or he wouldn't behave as he does. Do you know what really happened, Uncle George?” Her brown eyes were flashing, her cheeks aflame with her indignation.
“Oh, I know exactly what happened. Harry told me with the tears running down his cheeks. It was dreadful—INEXCUSABLE—BARBAROUS! I've been that way myself—tumbled half-way down these same stairs before you were born and had to be put to bed, which accounts for the miserable scapegrace I am to-day.” His face was in a broad smile, but his voice never wavered.