"Don't I, though. I know about that girl of yours, and what a fool she's making of you."
Forbes caught his breath. Then he realized that it was beneath his dignity to be angry. "I think it is hardly necessary," he said stiffly, "to discuss that subject, Hephzibah."
"Oh, no! you can stick your finger into my pie all you want to. You can tell me I ought to go to some place I never heard of, with somebody I never knew, and do everything I hate for years and years, but when I say one thing about your girl, it's hardly necessary to discuss that subject."
The last words were given with what he realized was an excellent imitation of his own air of dignified aloofness. This amused him and had the additional effect of mollifying his irritation. "But I am interfering in your affairs, because I have your interests at heart," he said very kindly.
"Same here. I hate like the mischief to see a nice gentleman made a fool of by a vain, silly girl with about as much brains as a cockroach, and as much heart as a pancake."
This description of Julia, though he would have indignantly denied that it had the remotest resemblance to truth, roused him to the realization that this uncouth young woman knew more of his personal affairs than she had any right to know.
"Hephzibah," he said sternly, "I don't understand where you could have secured information about any friends of mine. Surely Miss Kent—"
For all her faults, Hephzibah was capable of magnanimity. On one critical occasion Miss Kent had sacrificed Hephzibah's reputation to save herself, and Hephzibah was under no obligation to spare hers. Yet without hesitation she threw herself into the breach. "I listened," she explained quickly.
"You mean when Miss Kent was reading me my letters?" His flushed face told that he was not disposed to belittle her eavesdropping.