“They’ll do as I say. What kicking they do will be done mostly in private, and when they’re away from me.”
“I don’t want to make trouble for you.”
“You won’t make trouble for me. If there’s any trouble it will be for them,” he said grimly.
Neither of them made any motion toward the house. The girl felt a strange impulse of tenderness toward this man who had traveled so fast the road to destruction. She had seen before that deep hunger of the eyes, for she was of the type of woman that holds a strong attraction for men. It told her that he had looked in the face of his happiness too late—too late by the many years of a misspent life that had decreed inexorably the character he could no longer change.
“I am sorry,” she said again. “I didn’t see that in you at first. I misjudged you. One can’t label men just good or bad, as the novelists used to. You have taught me that—you and Mr. Neil.”
His low, sardonic laughter rippled out. “I’m bad enough. Don’t make any mistake about that, Miss Mackenzie. York’s different. He’s just a good man gone wrong. But I’m plain miscreant.”
“Oh, no,” she protested.
“As bad as they make them, but not wolf clear through,” he said again. “Something’s happened to me to-day. It won’t change me. I’ve gone too far for that. But some morning when you read in the papers that Wolf Leroy died with his boots on and everybody in sight registers his opinion of the deceased you’ll remember one thing. He wasn’t a wolf to you—not at the last.”
“I’ll not forget,” she said, and the quick tears were in her eyes.
York Neil came toward them from the house. It was plain from his manner he had a joke up his sleeve.