“Sheer perversity.”
“Isn’t it?” she agreed, with dangerous sweetness.
He knew he was being punished for having indulged himself, as he rarely did, in a display of temper. At once he took himself in hand.
“I’m serious about this, Betty. A girl has no right to take chances of this sort. I grant you Hollister has qualities—splendid ones. But the damning fact remains.”
Betty relented. He was human. He had cried out because he was hurt. “I don’t think it remains, Justin. I’m absolutely convinced that it’s conquered—what you call his vice.”
“What I call his vice! Wouldn’t every sane person call it that?”
“Not if they knew the circumstances. He was left with terrible pains in the head after he was wounded. They gave him morphine—a lot of it. He got to depending on it. The habit grew on him. Then he woke up and shook it off. It’s to his credit rather than the reverse.”
“Even so. There’s a danger that he’ll go back to it.”
And again she denied it, with the certainty of one who does not need evidence to bulwark an absolute assurance. “No danger at all.”
They were standing in front of the porch. Reed came toward them from the stable. Both knew that the last word had been said.