“I don’t know, Mr. Flack,” Francie answered with impatience.
“Well I do then. He’s a coward too—he’ll do what his poppa tells him, and the countess and the duchess and his French brothers-in-law from whom he takes lessons: he’ll just back down, he’ll give you up.”
“I can’t talk with you about that,” said Francie.
“Why not? why is he such a sacred subject, when we ARE together? You can’t alter that,” her visitor insisted. “It was too lovely your standing up for me—your not denying me!”
“You put in things I never said. It seems to me it was very different,” she freely contended.
“Everything IS different when it’s printed. What else would be the good of the papers? Besides, it wasn’t I; it was a lady who helps me here—you’ve heard me speak of her: Miss Topping. She wants so much to know you—she wants to talk with you.”
“And will she publish THAT?” Francie asked with unstudied effect.
Mr. Flack stared a moment. “Lord, how they’ve worked on you! And do YOU think it’s bad?”
“Do I think what’s bad?”
“Why the letter we’re talking about.”