"She won't talk to me about it," I said.
May didn't make any reply to this, and we sat there some time without talking. Then May asked in a queer little voice:—
"Tell me, Van, is there anything in that story? Is it true in the least way?"
"I'll tell you just how it was," I answered.
May was not the kind of person that could be put off with a general answer, and I was glad to give her the inside story. So I told her the circumstances of the case. "It was blackmail and robbery—the judge was waiting to be bought. These rats stood between us and what we had a perfect right to do. There's hardly a business man in this city who, under the circumstances, would not have done what we did!"
"I don't believe that!" May exclaimed in her sharp, decisive little way.
She sat looking at me rather sternly with the same look on her face that I had remembered for twenty years. And the next thing that she said was pretty much what I thought she was going to say:—
"Van, you are always a great hand to think what you want to believe is the only thing to believe! You know that!"
She smiled unconsciously, with the little ironical ripple which I knew so well, and I smiled, too. I couldn't help myself. We both seemed to have gone back to the old boy and girl days. But I was angry, as well, and began to defend myself.
"No," she interrupted. "It isn't a mite of use for you to bluster and get angry, Van. I don't trust you! I haven't for some time. I have been worried for Will. Don't you let him mix himself up in your ways of doing things, Van Harrington!"