Wren nodded miserably.
"People always seem to make a fool out of me," he said boyishly. "There was a bank back in Ohio—I was the cashier. Another fellow pulled some dirty work, and I came mighty close to going over the road. Only plain fool luck saved me! And now—"
"Reese doesn't think you're a fool, and neither do I," said Dorothy. "Forget all that silly talk, Jimmy! Don't blame yourself. You've made me terribly afraid, this morning—something you said—"
Her words fell off. Wren stared at her, puzzled.
"I've made you afraid? Of what?"
Dorothy smiled, but with an effort.
"I don't know; I can't say, Jimmy. Did you ever read Othello?"
"Shakespeare? Oh, sure. What's that got to do with it?"
"Nothing, perhaps. But there are some men like Iago, either in big or small ways. Do you believe that a man could have a corrosive touch—a touch that corrodes every one with whom he comes in contact, morally or in other ways? A man who makes use of everybody and twists them to his own desires, and leaves them all broken or rotted out behind him?"
Jimmy Wren frowned over this.