“I like and respect you, Livingstone. If you're worrying about what these damned gossips say, let's call it a day and forget it. I know a man when I see one, and if it's all right with Elizabeth it's all right with me.”
Things, however, did not turn out just that way. Dick came in, grave and clearly preoccupied, and the first thing he said was:
“I have a story to tell you, Mr. Wheeler. After you've heard it, and given me your opinion on it, I'll come to a matter that—well, that I can't talk about now.”
“If it's the silly talk that I daresay you've heard—”
“No. I don't give a damn for talk. But there is something else. Something I haven't told Elizabeth, and that I'll have to tell you.”
Walter Wheeler drew himself up rather stiffly. Leslie's defection was still in his mind.
“Don't tell me you're tangled up with another woman.”
“No. At least I think not. I don't know.”
It is doubtful if Walter Wheeler grasped many of the technicalities that followed. Dick talked and he listened, nodding now and then, and endeavoring very hard to get the gist of the matter. It seemed to him curious rather than serious. Certainly the mind was a strange thing. He must read up on it. Now and then he stopped Dick with a question, and Dick would break in on his narrative to reply. Thus, once:
“You've said nothing to Elizabeth at all? About the walling off, as you call it?”