"Certainly. Don't you?"
The direct return question served to nettle and confuse him. "It is, perhaps, not my place to say, as my future happiness does not directly depend on the permanence of his reformation. But if his word can be depended upon, your happiness to a very large extent does."
She bowed. "I have no doubt you can safely repose confidence in whatever he may have told you regarding me."
"You indorse, then, the claims he advances?"
"You are very insistent; yet I know of no good reason why I should not answer. Without at all knowing the nature of those claims to which you refer, I have no hesitancy in saying that I possess such complete confidence in Bob Hampton as to reply unreservedly yes. But really, Lieutenant Brant, I should prefer talking upon some other topic. It is evident that you two gentlemen are not friendly, yet there is no reason why any misunderstanding between you should interfere with our friendship, is there?"
She asked this question with such perfect innocence that Brant believed she failed to comprehend Hampton's claims.
"I have been informed that it must," he explained. "I have been told that I was no longer to force my attentions upon Miss Gillis."
"By Bob Hampton?"
"Yes. Those were, I believe, his exact words. Can you wonder that I hardly know how I stand in your sight?"
"I do not at all understand," she faltered. "Truly, Lieutenant Brant, I do not. I feel that Mr. Hampton would not say that without a good and sufficient reason. He is not a man to be swayed by prejudice; yet, whatever the reason may be, I know nothing about it."