“Yes, I will. Only try me,” he said, brightening up.
“You must go and tell Louise that you are in love with Frankie Taliaferro.”
“Tell Louise? Why, Ruth, it would kill her. You don’t know her. She wouldn’t let me off. You don’t know how a girl in love feels. Ruth, were you ever in love?”
“That is not a pertinent question,” I said. “It comes quite near being the other thing. But let me tell you, Charlie Hardy, I know Louise King, and it won’t kill her. You know ‘men have died and worms have eaten them, but not for love.’ That might be said of women.” (I didn’t know, Tabby, whether it might or might not. I couldn’t afford to let him see my doubts, if I had any.) “We don’t die as easily as you men seem to think.”
“But is this your view of what is right?” he asked. “I was sure you would counsel the other. I’ve been fortifying myself to give Frankie up and marry Louise, and, with all due respect to you, I must say that I think you are wrong here. You must remember that my honor is involved.”
“Bother your honor!” I cried explosively. Charlie seemed rather pleased than otherwise at my inelegance. “I am tired to death of hearing men fall back on nonsense about their honor. I notice they seldom feel called upon to refer to it unless they are involved in something disreputable.”
Charlie straightened up at this and settled his coat with an indignant jerk.
“I hardly think,” he began stiffly, “that I am involved in anything disreputable in being engaged to Miss King.”
“What are a man’s debts of honor?” I went on with growing excitement. “Gaming debts and things he would scarcely care to explain to the public at large. Your honor is involved in this, is it? And you must save your honor at all hazards, no matter who goes to the wall in the process! I suppose if you made the rash vow that, if your horse won the race, you would cut your mother’s head off, while you were still in the flush of victory, you would seize your bowie-knife and go to work! No? Oh, yes, Charlie. Your honor, as you call it, is involved. I insist upon it. You must do it. Oh, I am going too far, am I? Not one step further than men go in the mire whither their honor leads them. Debts of honor, indeed! Debts of dishonor I call them. So do most women.”
“Yes, but, Ruth,” interrupted Charlie uneasily, “an engagement is different. I don’t dispute what you say in regard to gambling debts—”