"No, it has not come to that, not what you mean. But it has come to this: that your conduct has made every true friend of yours feel just as I do."
She stared at him a moment, gasping.
"Heavens! you frighten me! What have I done? Come over here on this log and tell me about it."
Graham's vehement little speech had vented the more explosive portion of his emotion. Whatever he should say now would be inspired rather by conviction than impulse; and the lover's natural unwillingness deliberately to antagonize his mistress made it exceedingly difficult to continue. He hesitated.
"You must tell me now," she commanded; "I insist. Now, what have I done?"
"It isn't so much what you have done," began Graham lamely, "as what you might do. You see you are very young, and you don't know the world; and so you might walk right into something very wrong without realizing in the least what you are doing, and without meaning to do wrong at all. Everybody owes it to himself to make the best out of himself, and you must know that you have great possibilities. But it isn't that so much. I wish I knew how to tell you exactly. You ought to have a mother. But if you'd only let us advise you, because we know more about it than you——"
The girl had watched him with gleaming eyes. "That doesn't mean anything," she interrupted. "What is it, now? Out with it!"
"It's Cheyenne Harry," blurted Graham desperately; "you oughtn't to go around with him so much."
"Now we have it," said the girl with dangerous calm; "I'm not to go around with Harry. Will you tell me why?"
"Well," replied Graham, floundering this side of the main fact; "it isn't a healthy thing for anybody to see any one person to the exclusion of others."