"Let it go at that, then. Call it that I'm crazy."
"If you will remember that I thought Miss Kent an elderly woman, you will realize that I—"
"Oh, your immaculate skirts are clean," exclaimed Warren, with preposterous bitterness. "You didn't make love to the nice old lady who was your father's boyhood flame. But you were so helpless and so darned pathetic and so dependent on her that you didn't have to. She's not like Julia, looking for an easy berth and a through ticket. Her idea of love is giving, giving without keeping count."
"You don't know what you're talking about," said Forbes, but with less conviction.
"Don't I, though! Do you remember the scheme we hatched to send Hephzibah to school?"
Forbes nodded.
"I came up and had a talk with her. Of course she was playing a part, but it wasn't all play-acting. She practically told me there was somebody she cared for. She—hang it all, Forbes, she's not always the audacious little devil who can palm herself off on an intelligent man as her own great-aunt, and never miss a cog. There was a look on her face when she spoke of that man—she was all angel, then."
"But what possible reason have you for thinking—why, you make me feel an ass for listening." Forbes' humility was so obvious as to be disarming.
"I know you're the man. She was always at me to have a talk with you and plead her cause, you know."
"But surely that wouldn't mean—"