“Yes. That is, he comes to see me.” Vicky’s chin was up ever so little. She sensed McClintock’s hostility. “I like him.”
“Do you? Can’t say I do. I don’t trust him.”
“Do you know him well?”
“No, and I don’t want to.”
The girl laughed. “You remind me of what Charles Lamb says in one of his essays. We were reading it in school. Or maybe it was an anecdote about him the teacher told us. Anyhow, he said he didn’t like a certain man. A friend asked him if he knew him. ‘Of course I don’t,’ Lamb said. ‘If I did I’d like him. That’s why I don’t want to know him.’ Is it like that with you?”
He considered this gravely. “Maybe so. I’m prejudiced against him on account of his brother.”
“But that’s no fair,” the girl cried quickly.
“And because of two or three things I’ve known him do.”
“What things?” she demanded.
Hugh did not care to discuss with Vicky the man’s amours. He shifted ground. “He’s selfish through and through. Thinks only of himself.”