The girl’s eyes sparkled. “When you say that it just shows how little you know him. He’s the most generous man I ever met.”
“He’s good lookin’, and he’s hail fellow enough. That’s not what I mean.”
“And it’s not what I mean,” she retorted, her temper beginning to rise. “Two or three months ago he did the bravest thing I ever saw—risked his life for hours in a caved tunnel, to save the life of a ragged little boy. Was that selfish? Was that thinking only of himself?”
“He’s game. He’ll go through,” admitted Hugh. “I didn’t mean that way.”
Her stormy eyes challenged him. “Then just what do you mean?”
Hugh flushed. He did not find it possible to tell her explicitly just what he did mean. It was bad enough for him to be violating the masculine instinct against exposing another man to one of the opposite sex. He could not draw a bill of particulars about Dodson before an innocent girl. Moreover, what he had heard of the man’s escapades was merely town gossip—true enough, he felt sure, but not evidence that could be held good before an ardent young advocate like Vicky.
“He’s not very scrupulous some ways,” he said lamely.
“What ways?”
McClintock felt himself being driven into a blind alley. He could not go on, nor could he turn back.
“I wouldn’t want a sister of mine to know him too well,” was the best he could do by way of explanation.