"John! You sound like a Puritan making love!"
Burleson was intensely annoyed:
"You'd better understand, Kelly, that Rita Tevis is as well born as I am, and that there would be nothing at all incongruous in any declaration that any decent man might make her!"
"Why, I know that."
"I'm glad you do. And I'm gratified that what you said has given me the opportunity to make myself very plain on the subject of Rita Tevis. It may amaze you to know that her great grandsire carried a flintlock with the Hitherford Minute Men, and fell most respectably at Boston Neck."
"Certainly, John. I knew she was all right. But I wasn't sure you knew it—"
"Confound it! Of course I did. I've always known it. Do you think I'd care for her so much if she wasn't all right?"
Neville smiled at him gravely, then held out his hand:
"Give my love to her, John. I'll see you both again before you go."
For nearly two weeks he had not heard a word from Valerie West. Rita and John Burleson had departed, cheerful, sure of early convalescence and a complete and radical cure.