“Yes, May—at least for a good long time.”
“Oh forgive me, brother,” continued the girl, with sudden earnestness, “but—but—you know your—your weakness—”
“Ay, May, I know it. Call it sin if you will—and my knowledge of it has something to do with my present determination, for, weak though I am, and bad though you think me—”
“But I don’t think you bad, dear Shank,” cried May, with tearful eyes; “I never said so, and never thought so, and—”
“Come, come, May,” interrupted the youth, with something of banter in his manner, “you don’t think me good, do you?”
“Well, no—not exactly,” returned May, faintly smiling through her tears.
“Well, then, if I’m not good I must be bad, you know. There’s no half-way house in this matter.”
“Is there not, Shank? Is there not very good and very bad?”
“Oh, well, if you come to that there’s pretty-good, and rather-bad, and a host of other houses between these, such as goodish and baddish, but not one of them can be a half-way house.”
“Oh yes, one of them can—must be.”