The insult brought speech crowding into her mouth. "When you know Mr. Power a little better you will find him to be no very expert merchant of stories. Friend to friend is an honest enough matter. And as a matter of fact——" She stopped. She had not courage to say she had been her own bloodhound.
"Well, and what about it?"
"I suppose there's not much to say about it, is there, since it's no affair of mine? But I hear my friend has little enough to be glad over, for it seems you don't care much for him. I'm his friend, and so I'm sorry. That's all."
"He thinks that, do he?"
"And is it true?"
"That's my business, isn't it?"
"It's nobody's business that I have ever heard to let a man make himself miserable, and for his pains give him neither no or yes."
"A girl don't always ask a man to come crying after her. You don't expect a girl to nurse every man that runs at her skirt."
"There is such a thing as kindness."