But the woman's
revelations as to the character of her cousin had confirmed me in the
belief that Jerry had gotten beyond his depth. I think I understood
her motives in telling me. I was Jerry's guardian and friend. If Miss
Gore was Marcia's cousin she was also her paid companion, her
creature, bound less by the ties of kinship than those of convention.
I suppose it was Jerry's helplessness that must have appealed to the
mother in her, his youth, innocence and genuineness. Perhaps she was
weary treading the mazes of deception and intrigue with which the girl
Marcia surrounded herself. Jerry wasn't fair game. All that was good
in her had revolted at the maiming of a helpless animal.

For such, I am sure, Jerry already was. How much or how little the
unconscious growth in the boy of the sexual impulse had to do with his
sudden subjugation by the girl it was impossible for me to estimate.
For if the impulse was newly born, it was born in innocence. This I
knew from the nature of his comments on his experiences in the city.
Knowledge of all sorts he was acquiring, but, like Adam, of the fruit
of the tree he had not tasted. And yet, even I, stoic though I was,
had been sensible of the animal in the girl. Her voice, her gestures,
her gait, all proclaimed her. Miss Gore had spoken of a psychic
attraction. Bah! There is but one kind of affinity of a woman of this
sort for a beautiful animal like Jerry!

It was bewildering for me to discover how deeply I was becoming
involved in Jerry's personal affairs. With the appointed day I had
turned him adrift to work out in his future career, alone and unaided,
my theory of life and his own salvation. And yet here, at the first
sign of danger, I found myself flying to his defense as Jack Ballard
would have it, like a hen that had hatched out a duckling. I reasoned
with myself sternly that I feared nothing for Jerry. He would emerge
from such an experience greater, stronger, purer even, and yet, in
spite of my confidence, I found myself planning, devising something
that would open the boy's eyes before damage was done. I was
solicitous for Jerry, but there were other considerations. Jerry
wasn't like other men. He had been taught to reason carefully from
cause to effect. He would not understand intrigue, of course, or
double dealing. They would bewilder him and he would put them aside,
believing what he was told and acting upon it blindly. For instance,
if this girl told him she cared