"And you think, I suppose," said Westover, "that she wouldn't have cared
any more than you cared if she had known what you did."

"I can't say anything about that."

The painter continued, bitterly: "You used to come in here, the first
year, with notions of society women that would have disgraced a Goth, or
a gorilla. Did you form your estimate of Miss Lynde from those premises?"

"I'm not a boy now," Jeff answered, "and I haven't stayed all the kinds
of a fool I was."

"Then you don't think Miss Lynde would speak to you, or look at you,
after she knew what you had done?"

"I should like to tell her and see," said Jeff, with a hardy laugh. "But
I guess I sha'n't have the chance. I've never been a favorite in society,
and I don't expect to meet her again."

"Perhaps you'd like to have me tell her?"

"Why, yes, I believe I should, if you could tell me what she thought--not
what she said about it."

"You are a brute," answered Westover, with a puzzled air. What puzzled
him most and pleased him least was the fellow's patience under his
severity, which he seemed either not to feel or not to mind. It was of a
piece with the behavior of the rascally boy whom he had cuffed for
frightening Cynthia and her little brother long ago, and he wondered what