"As I am to be kept so safe from the wicked world," said Katie stingingly, "I presume it is not proper you discuss the matter with me. I take it, however, that she was one of those 'excursions' into the great outer world?"
"Well," he said defiantly, "and what if she was? She was willing to be, I guess. She wasn't knocked down with a club."
"Oh, no! Oh, my no! That wouldn't be your method. And when one is tired of exursions—I suppose one is at perfect liberty to abandon them—?"
"Nonsense! You can't trump up anything of that sort. She wasn't 'abandoned.' She left in the night."
He colored. "I beg your pardon. But as long as we're speaking frankly—"
"Oh pray," said Katie, "let's not be overly delicate in this delicate little matter!"
"Very well then. Her coming was her own choice. Her going away was her own choice. I can see that I have no great responsibility in the matter."
"Why how clever you must be," said Katie, all the while smiling that hard smile, "to be able to argue it like that."
He was standing there with folded arms. "I think I was very decent to her. All things considered—in view of the nature of the affair—I consider that I was very decent."
Katie laughed. "Maybe you were. I found her in the very act of committing suicide."