it very painfully."

"She's not so tough but she'll be very glad to get out of it so lightly.
She has had a useful scare, and I've done her a favor in making the scare
a sharp one. I suppose," Verrian mused, "that she thinks I've kept
copies of her letters."

"Yes. Why didn't you?" his mother asked.

Verrian laughed, only a little less bitterly than before. "I shall begin
to believe you're all alike, mother."

I didn't keep copies of her letters because I wanted to get her and her
letters out of my mind, finally and forever. Besides, I didn't choose.
to emulate her duplicity by any sort of dissimulation.

"I see what you mean," his mother said. "And, of course, you have taken
the only honorable way."

Then they were both silent for a time, thinking their several thoughts.

Verrian broke the silence to say, "I wish I knew what sort of 'other
girl' it was that she 'got together with.'"

"Why?"

"Because she wrote a more cultivated letter than this magnanimous
creature who takes all the blame to herself."

"Then you don't believe they're both the same?"