She did not answer for a moment; she stood looking away from him.
"There was a letter this morning," she said tonelessly. "Jimmy is ill, and they asked her to go to him."
"Well!"
"She would not go. She told me she was going to Heston with you instead."
The silence fell again. Kettering's eyes were shining; there was a sort of shamed triumph about his big person.
Gladys turned to him impatiently.
"Are you looking glad? Oh, I think I should kill you if I saw you looking glad," she said quickly. "I only told you that so that you might see how much she is under your influence already; so that you can save her from herself. . . . She's so little and weak—and now that she is unhappy, it's just the time when she might do something she would be sorry for all her life—when she might——"
"What are you two talking about?" Christine demanded from the doorway.
She came down the steps and stood between them; she looked at
Kettering. "I thought you had gone," she said, surprised.
"No; I—Miss Leighton and I have been discussing the higher ethics," he said dryly. He held his hand to Gladys. "Well, good-bye," he said; there was a little emphasis on the last word.
She just touched his fingers.