reformed me? Why, she'd be bored to death. She'd be a martyr without any
martyrdom. When she made me give up tobacco, she lost interest in
everything for a week. She was like your Uncle Meriweather after the
surrender. There wasn't anything left to fight about, and fighting was
all he could do--"

"I believe--I really believe you have been drinking," interrupted
Gabriella with cold disgust. "Suppose Jane were to die?"

"She won't die. She'll be all right as soon as she has forgiven me."

He was not only bad, she told herself, he was perfectly shameless. He
appeared to have been born without the faintest sense of responsibility.
And yet, while Gabriella listened to him, she realized that, in some
ways, he might be a less trying companion than poor Jane. His candour
was as simple, as unaffected, as the serene artlessness of a child. It
was impossible not to believe in his sincerity. Though she "despised
him," as she told herself, still she was obliged to admit that there was
something to be said on his side. The harsh judgment of youth--of youth
that never tries to understand, that never makes allowances--softened
under the influence of Charley's reprehensible charm. Even badness,
Gabriella conceded grudgingly, might be easier to live with in some
circumstances than a too exalted self-righteousness.

"If you'll bring Jane to that way of thinking," retorted Charley, with
vulgar frankness, "I'll give you five hundred dollars down. If you'll
thoroughly corrupt her mind and persuade her to neglect her duty to me,
I'll make it a thousand."

He was jesting! It was monstrous, with Jane lying ill in her mother's