“Oh, he can be charming. He has a hideous facility for reading people. And, once read, he analyzes them—and uses their vanities and their avarices to manipulate them.
People usually mistake that process for charm.”
“Mmmm. He was upset though. On account of your brother.”
She drew a violent breath. “My—brother!”
Then Jimmie was startled. “You didn’t know?”
“What about my brother? Has Larry turned up? Have they—?”
Jimmie told her.
When he finished, she was crying. “I’m so glad,” she said. “So glad! Even if he—well, even if we don’t ever see him again. We’ll at least know. He would be a pilot! He would be a night fighter, too. The very most formidable thing he could find to do. He was a great kid, Jimmie. He was capricious and vain, in a way, and ferocious. But he had a will like the current in a magnet. Once he switched it on it never stopped or weakened and it snapped up everything that came near. That was why he—left—so young. I suppose he went on in school. He’d do that, too! I never thought he would—because he was young, and because my family assumed so automatically that he would go to hell. You know. It poisons you. And some people—most people—believe that everyone who turns from their chosen course is rotten and crazy. Father believes that, especially. Jimmie! You can imagine how glad I am!”
He could see how glad she was. False and theatrical though she might be about herself and about him, she was undeniably honest about her brother.
“I can see, Audrey. What I can’t understand is, why your father didn’t tell you what he had found out.”