“Not to please me?”
“Let me tell you what she has done,” and somewhat grimly he related the history of his cousin’s thefts.
“Why does not your face change?” he asked when he finished his story; “why do you not look scornful and shrink from me?”
“Why should I, Stanton?”
“I come of the same stock. Flora was an Armour before she married old Julius Colonibel for his money. This family is like a blasted tree, whose branches drop off one by one.”
“But the trunk remains; it will be sound till it falls,” said Vivienne, trying to enclose his unhappy figure in her arms; “and I know an ivy that will cling to it.”
“God bless the ivy, the confiding ivy,” he muttered with a clearing of face.
“And you will forgive Flora, Stanton?”
“Forgive, forgive,” he repeated; “what an easy word to say and what a hard thing to do. Shall one word be the end of her sin against me for months?”
“You have nothing to do with her punishment,” said Vivienne softly. “God takes care of us when we sin. Flora has already suffered. Put that thought aside and go to make your toilet for dinner.”