“But I shall lose my chance of happiness in any event.”
“Not necessarily. Certainly not if the young woman loves you.”
“You mean that she would wait, too? Possibly she might, if she knew; but she doesn’t, you know.”
Forsyth shrugged again. “I presume I am a traitor to my kind for suggesting it, but you are not under bonds not to tell her, are you?”
“No; I might have been, if the mother had seen fit to put it that way. But she didn’t. She declared open war, and she needn’t complain if I borrow her weapons.”
“No. And there is little doubt about your being able to hold your own in any stand-up fight. By the way, speaking of fights, did you shoot that fellow who was trying to bully me?”
“No; I shot his pistol out of his hand.”
“Purposely?”
“Of course.”
“It is a sheer marvel to me, the accuracy and the fact itself. I don’t understand how you managed to hit it; and I didn’t suppose a bullet would knock a pistol out of a man’s hand.”