"You talk," he answered, a little sulkily, "as if you knew some harm of
the girl."

"No, my son, I know nothing about her, except that she is not
single-minded, and there is no harm in not being single-minded. A great
many single-minded women are fools, and some double-minded women are
good."

"Well, single-minded or double-minded, if she is what she says she is,
what motive on earth could she have in writing to me except the motive
she gives? You don't deny that she tells the truth about herself?"

"Don't I say that she is sincere? But a girl doesn't always know her own
motives, or all of them. She may have written to you because she would
like to begin a correspondence with an author. Or she may have done it
out of the love of excitement. Or for the sake of distraction, to get
away from herself and her gloomy forebodings."

"And should you blame her for that?"

"No, I shouldn't. I should pity her for it. But, all the same, I
shouldn't want you to be taken in by her."

"You think, then, she doesn't care anything about the story?"

"I think, very probably, she cares a great deal about it. She is a
serious person, intellectually at least, and it is a serious story. No
wonder she would like to know, at first hand, something about the man who
wrote it."