He realized that he had really come to her to talk about it. It had been in the back of his head all the time.
“I'm rather anxious about Graham.”
“Toots Hayden?”
“Partly.”
“I'm afraid she's got him, Clay. There isn't a trick in the game she doesn't know. He had about as much chance as I have of being twenty again. She wants to make a wealthy marriage, and she's picked on Graham. That's all.”
“It isn't only Marion. I'm afraid there's another girl, a girl at the mill—his stenographer. I have no proof of anything. In fact, I don't think there is anything yet. She's in love with him, probably, or she thinks she is. I happened on them together, and she looked—Of course, if what you say about Marion is true, he can not care for her, even, well, in any way.”
“Oh, nonsense, Clay. A man—especially a boy—can love a half-dozen girls. He can be crazy about any girl he is with. It may not be love, but it plays the same tricks with him that the real thing does.”
“I can't believe that.”
“No. You wouldn't.”
She leaned back and watched him. How much of a boy he was himself, anyhow! And yet how little he understood the complicated problems of a boy like Graham, irresponsible but responsive, rich without labor, with time for the sort of dalliance Clay himself at the same age had had neither leisure nor inclination to indulge.