"Gad, I wish he would, Julia!" said Mr. Pitman, with his kind eyes on
her.

"Well then, I'd tell him!" And she held her head again high. "But he
won't."

It fairly distressed her companion. "Doesn't he want, then, to
know--?"

"He wants _not_ to know. He wants to be told without asking--told,
I mean, that each of the stories, those that have come to him, is a
fraud and a libel. _Qui s'excuse s'accuse_, don't they say?--so that
do you see me breaking out to him, unprovoked, with four or five
what-do-you-call-'ems, the things mother used to have to prove in
court, a set of neat little 'alibis' in a row? How can I get hold of
so _many_ precious gentlemen, to turn them on? How can _they_ want
everything fished up?"

She paused for her climax, in the intensity of these considerations;
which gave Mr. Pitman a chance to express his honest faith. "Why, my
sweet child, they'd be just glad--!"

It determined in her loveliness almost a sudden glare. "Glad to swear
they never had anything to do with such a creature? Then _I'd_ be glad
to swear they had lots!"

His persuasive smile, though confessing to bewilderment, insisted.
"Why, my love, they've got to swear either one thing or the other."