that his friends will not put unnecessary
obstacles in the way of working to that end."

She said no more. Poor Belle Fluette! She was to have my sympathy
more than once during the days that were to follow. Miss Cooper looked
at me a little apprehensively, but I read confidence in her eyes.

"Let Mr. Maillot proceed," I now said. "It is not fair to him to fail
at this stage to hear all that he has to say, providing he really
desires to continue. I want to ask one question, though, before you
proceed."

"Well?"

I glanced meaningly at Miss Fluette. "Considering all the
circumstances, can you confide in me with propriety--just now?"

"To be sure," he replied, promptly and earnestly; "as well now as any
time. You may readily imagine that to sit here and unfold affairs so
intimately personal is a matter of expediency and not of choice."

He had missed my point altogether; I wanted to spare the girl. But it
was n't for me to warn him of the complications which were likely to
arise from his disclosures.

"I can well believe that," said I. "Go on."

CHAPTER VII

HOW THE ERRAND ENDED

"Don't you know, Swift," Maillot resumed, after a meditative pause,
"that it's a mighty easy matter to misjudge a man? Certain reports
concerning a person become current, for example, and before we know
it--perhaps without giving the matter a thought--we gradually grow to
accept them as accurately descriptive of his personality.

"I have wondered more than once during the past week whether we have
n't an entirely erroneous conception of every prominent man whom we
don't know intimately. 'By your actions be ye judged'--if we were,
most of us would be condemned out of hand.

"No, sir; it's not by a man's actions that he may be accurately
appraised, but the motives that lie behind those actions; and those
motives are exceedingly difficult to define. The incentive that impels
us to a given act may be all right, the intention to perform it the
best in the world, and then the act itself may be all wrong. Who 's to
blame then? Who more than any other can set himself up to censure our
conduct, or lay down a code of ethics and morals for his neighbor to
follow? I am assuming that you have heard a good deal about my uncle,
and I know the reports concerning him are anything but flattering."

This speech fell in so harmoniously with my own train of reasoning,
that I gave the young man's words the closest attention. Assumi