The dignity and tenderness and courtesy in his voice sort of
sobered me. But all at once I remembered the face of Mrs. Dowager
Diamonds, and I understood.

"Oh, because of her," I said, smiling and pointing to the side
where the coupe had been.

My, but it was a rotten bad move! I ought to have been strapped
for it. Oh, Tom, Tom, it takes more'n a red coat with chinchilla
to make a black-hearted thing like me into the girl he thought I
was.

He stiffened and sat up like a prim little school-boy, his soft
eyes hurt like a dog's that's been wounded.

I won't tell you what I did then. No, I won't. And you won't
understand, but just that minute I cared more for what he thought
of me than whether I got to the Correction or anywhere else.

It made us friends in a minute, and when he stopped the carriage
to let me out, my hand was still in his. But I wouldn't go. I'd
made up my mind to see him out of his part of the scrape, and
first thing you know we were driving up toward the Square, if you
please, to Mrs. Dowager Diamonds' house.

He thought it was his scheme, the poor lamb, to put me in her
charge till my lost daddy could send for me. He'd no more idea
that I was steering him toward her, that he was doing the only
thing possible, the only square thing by his reputation, than he
had that Nance Olden had been raised by the Cruelty, and then