"Rather fine of him, wasn't it, to assume all the blame?—particularly if it's true, as people say," concluded Miss Avery, "that the man's in love with her and she cares nothing for him."
"Fine—splendid—but entirely unnecessary," said West.
The little story had disturbed him greatly. He had had no knowledge of any developments between Sharlee and his former assistant; and now he was unhappily conscious that he ought to have spoken weeks ago.
"I'm awfully sorry to hear this," he resumed, "for I am much attached to that boy. Still—if, as you say, everything is all right now—"
"Oh, but I don't know at all that it is," said Miss Avery, hastily. "That is just the point. The last I heard of it, she had forbidden him her house."
"That won't do," said Charles Gardiner West, in a burst of generosity. "I'll clear up that difficulty before I sleep to-night."
And he was as good as his word, or, let us say, almost as good. The next night but one he called upon Sharlee Weyland with two unalterable purposes in his mind. One was to tell her the full inside history of the reformatory article from the beginning. The other was to notify her in due form that she held his heart in permanent captivity.
To Miss Avery, it made not the slightest difference whether the gifted and charming editor of the Post sold out his principles for a price every morning in the month. At his pleasure he might fracture all of the decalogue that was refinedly fracturable, and so long as he rescued his social position intact from the ruin, he was her man just the same. But she had an instinct, surer than reasoned wisdom, that Sharlee Weyland viewed these matters differently. Therefore she had sent West to make his little confession, face to face. And therefore West, after an hour of delightful tête-à-tête in the charming little back parlor, stiffened himself up, his brow sicklying o'er with the pale cast of disagreeable thought, and began to make it.
"I've got to tell you something about—a subject that won't be welcome to you," he plunged in, rather lugubriously. "I mean—the reformatory."
Sharlee's face, which had been merry and sweet, instantly changed and quieted at that word; interest sprang full-armed in her deep blue eyes.