“She's there and she'll stop in here on her way along,” he said triumphantly. “And she'll back me up—you see.”
But she did not. She did not “back up” any one. She merely smiled and declared the problem too complicated to answer offhand.
“Why don't you ask Albert?” she inquired. “After all, he is the one who must settle it eventually.”
“He won't tell,” said Olive. “He's real provokin', isn't he? And now you won't tell, either, Helen.”
“Oh, I don't know—yet. But I think he does.”
Albert, as usual, walked home with her.
“How are you going to answer your hero's riddle?” she asked.
“Before I tell you, suppose you tell me what your answer would be.”
She reflected. “Well,” she said, “it seems to me that, all things being as they are, he should do this: He should go to the sideshow man—the minister now—and have a very frank talk with him. He should tell him that he had decided to say nothing about the old life and to help him in every way, to be his friend—provided that he keep straight, that is all. Of course more than that would be meant, the alternative would be there and understood, but he need not say it. I think that course of action would be fair to himself and to everybody. That is my answer. What is yours?”
He laughed quietly. “Just that, of course,” he said. “You would see it, I knew. You always see down to the heart of things, Helen. You have the gift.”