“It doesn’t concern you who told us!” blustered Stephen, pushing forward. He might have been a fly buzzing on the wall for all the attention his uncle paid him.
“I presume likely the Dunns told you, Caroline,” he repeated, calmly.
His niece met his gaze stubbornly.
“Well,” she answered, “and if they did? Wasn’t it necessary we should know it? Oh!” with a shudder of disgust, “I wish I could make you understand how ashamed I feel—how wicked and ashamed I feel that I—I should have disgraced father’s memory by.... Oh, but there! I can’t! Yes; Mrs. Dunn and Malcolm did tell us—many things. Thank God that we have friends to tell us the truth!”
“Amen!” quietly. “I’ll say amen to that, Caroline, any time. Only I want you to be sure those you call friends are real ones and that the truths they tell ain’t like the bait on a fishhook, put on for bait and just thick enough to cover the barb.”
“Do you mean to insinuate—” screamed the irrepressible nephew, wild at being so completely ignored. His uncle again paid not the slightest attention.
“But that ain’t neither here nor there now,” he went on. “Caroline, Mr. Pearson just told you that his coming to this house without tellin’ you fust of his quarrel with ’Bije was his fault. That ain’t so. The fault was mine altogether. He told me the whole story; told me that he hadn’t called since it happened, on that very account. And I took the whole responsibility and asked him to come. I did! Do you know why?”
If he expected an answer none was given. Caroline’s lids drooped disdainfully. “Steve,” she said, “let us go.”
“Stop! You’ll stay here until I finish. I want to say that I didn’t tell you about the Trolley fuss because I wanted you to learn some things for yourself. I wanted you to know Mr. Pearson—to find out what sort of man he was afore you judged him. Then, when you had known him long enough to understand he wasn’t a liar and a blackguard, and all that Steve has called him, I was goin’ to tell you the whole truth, not a part of it. And, after that, I was goin’ to let you decide for yourself what to do. I’m a lot older than you are; I’ve mixed with all sorts of folks; I’m past the stage where I can be fooled by—by false hair or soft soap. You can’t pour sweet oil over a herrin’ and make me believe it’s a sardine. I know the Pearson stock. I’ve sailed over a heap of salt water with one of the family. And I’ve kept my eyes open since I’ve run acrost this particular member. And I knew your father, too, Caroline Warren. And I say to you now that, knowin’ Jim Pearson and ’Bije Warren—yes, and knowin’ the rights and wrongs of that Trolley business quite as well as Malcolm Dunn or anybody else—I say to you that, although ’Bije was my brother, I’d bet my life that Jim had all the right on his side. There! that’s the truth, and no hook underneath it. And some day you’ll realize it, too.”
He had spoken with great vehemence. Now he took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his forehead. When he again looked at his niece, he found her staring intently at him; and her eyes blazed.