"I suppose you didn't know that one of his grand schemes was to write a terrible article in the paper attacking papa and the Works?"
"Oh!" said Hen, plucking a thread from her old black skirt. "Oh, that letter in the 'Post,' long ago, you mean? Yes, I--knew about that; I wanted to speak to you about it at the time. Did you read it, Cally?"
"I glanced at it," said Cally, shortly.
Full of the interest of thundering feet as the week had been since Willie and mamma had given her the connecting link, Carlisle had in fact made a point of getting hold of a copy of the old paper containing that particular piece. Not being at all familiar with Works and newspapers, she had found the process involved with considerable perplexity and trouble, but she had felt amply rewarded in the end. The piece came to her hand like a weapon, against any possible remeeting with its remembered author.
Now she regarded Hen with steadily rising annoyance.
"What was your friend's idea in writing such outrageous stuff, do you know? Is he really crazy, as they say, or is he just an ordinary notoriety seeker?"
Colorless Hen looked rather hard at her pretty cousin. She allowed a perceptible pause to fall before she said:
"I thought you said you knew him."
"No; I said that I barely spoke to him once."
"If you only said good-morning to him--if you only looked at him once, on the street--I don't see how you could possibly imagine.... Why, Cally, he's about the least self-seeking human being that ever lived. He's so absolutely un-self-seeking that he gives away every single thing he's got, to anybody that comes along and wants it. In the first place, he's giving away his life.... Some of his ideas may be visionary or mistaken, but--"