"I shall tell him."
"Tell him? You little fool. And give us all away?"
"I'd mention no other names."
"As if he wouldn't probe until he found out. Don't you know Price Ruyler
yet? My father said once he'd have made a great District Attorney. What's
the use of telling him later, for that matter? Why not now?"
"I haven't the courage yet. I might have one day--at just the right
moment. I never thought I was a coward."
"You're just a kid. That's what's the matter. We ought to have left you
out. I told Polly that--"
"You couldn't! Oh, don't you see you couldn't. That's the terrible part
of it! Left me out? I'd have found my way in."
"I'm not so sure. You were interested in heaps of things, and in love,
and all that--"
"Oh, I'd like to excuse myself by blaming it on being bored, and tired of
trying to amuse myself doing nothing worth while, but it's bad blood,
that's what it is, bad blood, and you know it, if none of the others do."
"Oh, I'm not one of your heredity fiends. When did your mother tell you?"
"Only the other day."
"Well, she ought to have told you long ago. I believe you'd have kept out
if you'd known."
"Wouldn't I? But of course she hated to tell the truth to me--"
"Well, if I'd known that you didn't know I'd have told you, all right. I
wormed it out of Dad soon after you arrived, and at first I thought it
was a good joke on Society, to say nothing of Price Ruyler, with his air
of God having created heaven first, maybe, but New York just after. Then
I got fond of you and I wouldn't have told for the world. But I would
have put you on your guard if I'd known."
"Oh, it doesn't matter. Even if Price doesn't find out about this, if he
learns the other--who my father was, and that awful men have recognized
my mother--I suppose he'll hate me, and in time I'll go back to Rouen--"
"Now, you don't think as ill as that of him, do you? He makes me so mad
sometimes I could spit in his face, but if he's one thing he's true blue.
He's the straight masculine type with a streak of old romance that would
make him love a woman the more, the sorrier he was for her, and the
weaker she was--I mean so long as she was young. After this, just get to
work on your character, kid. When you're thirty maybe he won't feel that
it's his whole duty to protect you. You'll never be hard and seasoned
like me, nor able to take care of yourself. I like danger, and
excitement, and uncertainty, and mystery, and intrigue, and lying, and
wriggling out of tight places. I'd have gone mad in this hole long ago,
if I hadn't, for I don't care for sport. But you were intended to develop
into what is called a 'fine woman,' surrounded by the right sort of man
meanwhile. And Price Ruyler is the right sort. I'll say that much for
him. He'd have driven me to drink, but he's just your sort--"