“No, it isn’t poker. Worse than that. You’ve been setting a deplorable example to the young.”
“To young ladies—like Miss Virginia?” he wanted to know.
“No, to young Christians. I don’t know what our good deacons will say about it.” She illuminated her severity with a flashing smile. “Don’t you know that the sins of the fathers are to descend upon their children even to the third and fourth generation? Don’t you know that when a man does wrong he must die punished, and his children and his wife, of course, and that the proper thing to do is to stand back and thank Heaven we haven’t been vile sinners?”
“Now, don’t you begin on that, Miss Virginia,” he warned.
“And after the man had disgraced himself and shot you, after all respectable people had given him an extra kick to let him know he must stay down and had then turned their backs upon him. I’m not surprised that you’re ashamed.”
“Where did you get hold of this fairy-tale?” he plucked up courage to demand.
“From Norma Pelton. She told me everything, the whole story from beginning to end.”
“It’s right funny you should be calling on her, and you a respectable young lady—unless you went to deliver that extra kick you was mentioning,” he grinned.
She dropped her raillery. “It was splendid. I meant to ask Mr. Ridgway to do something for them, but this is so much better. It takes them away from the place of his disgrace and away from temptation. Oh, I don’t wonder Norma kissed you.”
“She told you that, too, did she?”