"Have you any objection to his marrying me?" she asked boldly.
Jack lied quickly. "None whatever."
"Then why did you try to poison his mind against me?"
Jack thought: "Oh, Bobo! Bobo! I'm glad I didn't tell you all." To her he said with seeming astonishment: "I! Poison his mind against you! What an idea!"
"Well, try to dissuade him from—er—paying me attention."
"My dear Miriam, put yourself in my place for a moment. I am Bobo's friend. I do feel the responsibility of looking after him, just as you say. He meets a lovely girl of whom we know nothing, a girl lovely enough to believe the worst of—and he falls head over heels in love. Was it not my plain duty to beg him to go slow, to think what he was doing?"
"What do you mean, believe the worst of?"
"Just a figure of speech. You are really remarkably beautiful. It isn't reasonable to suppose that you have reached your present age without having had—well, exciting things happen to you."
She shrugged. "I wish I had had." She was unable to keep a sharp note out of her voice. "You told him that I—wasn't all that I ought to be."
"I had to say something to make him pull up long enough to give me time to find out."