I considered this bit of information, which was not as surprising or
unexpected as Mayme appeared to deem it. "Have you told the Little
Red Doctor?"

"Doc'd kill him," said Mayme simply.

"What better reason for telling?"

"Oh, the poor kid: he don't know any better."

"Doesn't he? In any case I trust that you know better, after this, than
to have anything more to do with him."

"Yep. I've cut him out," replied Mayme listlessly. "I figured you and
Doc were right, Dominie. It's no good, his kind of game. Not for girls
like me." She looked up at me with limpid eyes, in which there was
courage and determination and suffering.

"My dear," I murmured, "I hope it isn't going to be too hard."

"He's so pretty," said Mayme McCartney wistfully.

So he was, now that I came to think of it. With his clear, dark color,
his wavy hair, his languishing brown eyes, his almost girlishly graceful
figure, and his beautiful clothes, he was pretty enough to fascinate any
inexperienced imagination. But I cannot say that he looked pretty when,
a few days later, he invaded Our Square in search of a Mayme who had
vanished beyond his ken (she had kept her tenement domicile a secret
from him), and, addressing me as "you white-whiskered old goat," accused