She drew her fine brows together. “I guess there are a good many things that would surprise you. But you don’t need to tell me about hard times. That’s the way I am. I’ll do anything, give anything, so long as I don’t have to hear hard stories.” She turned to him confidentially. “Perhaps it’s acting in false scenes on the stage; perhaps it’s because I’m lazy and selfish, but I can’t bear to hear about tales of woe.”
What she said somewhat disturbed his idea of her big-hearted charity.
“I don’t believe you’re lazy or selfish,” he said sincerely, “but I’ve got an idea that not many people really know you.”
This amused her. Looking at him quizzically, she laughed. “I expect you think you do.”
Dan answered: “Well, I guess the people that see you when you are a kid, who come from your own part of the country, have a sort of friendship.” And the girl on the sofa from the depths of her shawl put out a thin little hand to him and said in a voice as lovely in tone as when she sang in Mandalay:
“Well, I guess that’s right! I guess that’s about true.”
After the tenth of a second, in which she thought best to take her little cold hand away from those big warm ones, she asked:
“Now please do tell me about the poor people.”
In this way giving him to understand how really true his better idea of her had been.
“Why, the old duffer is as happy as a house afire,” said the boy. “Not to boast, I’ve done the whole thing up as well as I knew how. I’ve got him into that health resort you spoke of, and the girl seems to have got a regular education vice! She wants to study something, so she’s going to school.”