“No.”
“Craddock didn't tell you that, did he?”
“Hardly——”
“I thought not. He has too much horse-sense in spite of his emotional gymnastics. You learned it in the first dime-novel you read.”
“I never read a dime-novel in my life,” she interrupted, indignantly.
“I know—you paid a dollar and a quarter for it—but it was a dime-novel. The philosophy of this school of trash you have built into a creed of life. How can you be so blind? How can you make so tragic a blunder?”
“That's just it, Jane: I couldn't if your impressions of his character were true. I couldn't make a mistake about so vital a question. I couldn't love him if he really were a coarse, illiterate brute. What you see is only on the surface. He hasn't had his chance yet——”
“Who is he? What does he do? Who are his people?”
“He has no people——”
“I thought not.”