"They've put that pretty child on to me again," he said. "This is from
that little Day girl you fell in love with, last year, in the Assembly
Rooms, Ada." He tossed the letter into her lap.
"That sweetly pretty little thing at the concert?" She read the letter.
"What shall you do?" she asked.
"Decline."
"Oh, Francis! Why?"
"Because the boy is a ne'er-do-well. I have heard of him before. He is
safest where he is."
"She'll think it so unkind, poor child."
"It can't be helped."
"Would it cost much to buy him off?"
"It isn't the money."
"The principle?"
"No. Nor yet, altogether, the principle."
"It would be kind and good-natured to do what the poor little thing asks."
"Yes. But for the sake of seeming good-natured I'm not going to be made a
tool of."
"You'll simply write back, then, that you won't do it?" She laughed a
little, looking across at him as he stood up, tall and solemn and
handsome, with his back to the fire. "To do that will cost you more than
just enclosing the money."
"That is not the question, Ada. I shall write, or"--he paused a minute,
putting his lips together as his habit was when making up his mind to a
course which did not altogether please him--"I'll go and see her," he
finished.
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