"She wouldn't understand that. I've never talked to her." Mona, like many women of broad and easy attitude toward sex relations in so far as went her own life, had a reticence in discussing them with other women.
"Yes; she would. Pat's over twelve, you know."
"Yes; I know. But does she?"
"Perfectly."
"Why? She didn't say anything——"
"No; she didn't go into the physico-psycho-analysis of her emotions, if that's what you mean, Mona. I shouldn't have let her. There's a touch of the morbid in her, anyway. That's the Irish strain from her father. But there's a lot of your saving grace, too—your most saving grace."
"And what may that be?"
"The habit of facing facts squarely; even facts about oneself."
"Is that a gift or a detriment, Bob?"
"It's a saving grace, I tell you. Little Pat is going to look right clean through the petty illusions of life, clear-eyed."