There was something in the boy that suggested to you," I continued,
"that he covered and concealed their relation."

"Oh, he couldn't prevent--"

"Your learning the truth? I daresay! But, heavens," I fell,
with vehemence, athinking, "what it shows that they must,
to that extent, have succeeded in making of him!"

"Ah, nothing that's not nice NOW!" Mrs. Grose lugubriously pleaded.

"I don't wonder you looked queer," I persisted, "when I mentioned
to you the letter from his school!"

"I doubt if I looked as queer as you!" she retorted with homely force.
"And if he was so bad then as that comes to, how is he such an angel now?"

"Yes, indeed--and if he was a fiend at school! How, how, how?
Well," I said in my torment, "you must put it to me again,
but I shall not be able to tell you for some days. Only, put it
to me again!" I cried in a way that made my friend stare.
"There are directions in which I must not for the present
let myself go." Meanwhile I returned to her first example--
the one to which she had just previously referred--
of the boy's happy capacity for an occasional slip.
"If Quint--on your remonstrance at the time you speak of--
was a base menial, one of the things Miles said to you,
I find myself guessing, was that you were another."
Again her admission was so adequate that I continued:
"And you forgave him that?"