aving her pupil on her mind.

Effie sprang past them, and Darrow took up the girl's challenge.

"What you suggest about Mrs. Leath is hardly worth answering. As to my
reasons for wanting to help you, a good deal depends on the words one
uses to define rather indefinite things. It's true enough that I want to
help you; but the wish isn't due to...to any past kindness on your part,
but simply to my own interest in you. Why not put it that our friendship
gives me the right to intervene for what I believe to be your benefit?"

She took a few hesitating steps and then paused again. Darrow noticed
that she had grown pale and that there were rings of shade about her
eyes.

"You've known Mrs. Leath a long time?" she asked him suddenly.

He paused with a sense of approaching peril. "A long time--yes."

"She told me you were friends--great friends"

"Yes," he admitted, "we're great friends."

"Then you might naturally feel yourself justified in telling her that
you don't think I'm the right person for Effie." He uttered a sound of
protest, but she disregarded it. "I don't say you'd LIKE to do it. You
wouldn't: you'd hate it. And the natural alternative would be to try
to persuade me that I'd be better off somewhere else than here. But
supposing that failed, and you saw I was determined to stay? THEN you
might think it your duty to tell Mrs. Leath."

She laid the case before him with a cold lucidity. "I should, in your
place, I believe," she ended with a little laugh.

"I shouldn't feel justified in telling her, behind your back, if
I thought you unsuited for the place; but I should certainly feel
justified," he rejoined after a pause, "in telling YOU if I thought the
place unsuited to you."

"And that's what you're trying to tell me now?"

"Yes; but not for the reasons you imagine."

"What, then, are your reasons, if you please?"

"I've already implied them in advising you not to give up all idea
of the theatre. You're too various, too gifted, too personal, to tie
yourself down, at your age, to the dismal drudgery of teaching."

"And is THAT what you've told Mrs. Leath?"

She rushed the question out at him as if she expected to trip him up
over it. He was moved by the simplicity of the stratagem.

"I've told her exactly nothing," he replied.

"And what--exactly--do you mean by 'nothing'? You and she were talking
about me when I came into her sitting-room yesterday."

Darrow felt his blood rise at the thrust.