"I'm beginning to believe you. But I still think he's——"
She flattened a hand gently across his lips. "No, you don't. He's the best man I've ever known. Except, perhaps, you, Bobs. If you were in Monty's place and I came to you and told the whole thing you'd marry me anyway, wouldn't you?"
"Yes, of course."
"But you don't think Monty would?"
"I didn't say so. He's very young and—and unformed."
Pat fell into a reverie. "It was really my mind that Cary seduced. He drew my mind into his and—and sort of absorbed it, so that I couldn't get any satisfaction out of other associations. You wouldn't call him a damned scoundrel for that——"
"I'm not so sure I wouldn't."
"—but it's the thing he's most to blame for. It's worse than the other. It goes deeper."
"You're getting profound, Pat, as well as clever." In spite of his perturbation, the doctor smiled. "Though you're talking casuistry."
"I don't know what that is. I'm talking sense. I've almost forgotten that Cary and I were lovers. But there's something way down deep in my mind that he'll never lose his hold on."