"No, I said 'No' straight out. I said it wouldn't be fair to you two for me to promise that."
"Well, you haven't said 'No' straight out to me. Which means you like me better."
"You know it. But everybody has been so kind, I would rather not take a side at all."
"You'll have to, my poor Mademoiselle! You have seen too much. You have already become more like one of the family in your few months here than any outsider before. And you are too good a friend not to be worth trying for."
"Too useful an ally."
"I mean that. Don't be cynical. Because I like you—and I do enormously—it is not wrong for me to want you to help me, is it? Suppose there were a bad quarrel between Mamma and me, and you became mixed up in it, so that you had to choose to side with one or the other of us, which would it be?"
"I don't think anything like that would arise, and I don't see what I could do anyway; but my sympathies would be with you."
"Thank you, I am so happy. I didn't want to make you promise. You would help me, wouldn't you?"
"Perhaps. On one condition, that you told me everything."
"I promise that. But just for fun, I'd like you to tell me beforehand what you have already guessed on your own: what, for instance, you thought of the pleasant little incidents at luncheon today. Just for fun."