"Evan, are you sure this last state of your mind is not worse than the first?"
He laughed, ironically.
"How hard it is to make you believe that any good exists in me."
"Oh, not that, Evan, but you look so strange; not so wild as before, but—"
"Just as wicked."
"Well, yes!"
"Well, Con., you can't expect a fellow to feel pious all in an instant; mine is a pious resolve, and the proper feeling must follow. Isn't that about how they preach it?"
"That's about how they preach it, sir. Now listen, I don't intend to stir one step, or allow you to stir, until you have explained some of your dark sayings; you are going to tell me what this new resolve is."
Evan glanced at her from under his long lashes, and seemed to hesitate. He knew that Constance, in what he had sometimes termed her "imperative mood," was a difficult element to contend with. But he was not quite prepared to divulge just the precise thoughts that were in his mind.
"Con.," he said, slowly, "do you think, if my sister came back very penitent, or very miserable, that my father would take her home?"