That's it." He
guessed shrewdly.
That outburst betrayed him. This young man from the north country was
very human after all, she decided.
"I have said before, this is a campaign of honesty. Your grandfather did
ask me to talk to you. I didn't have the heart to refuse him, for I'm
very fond of him."
It was an acknowledgment that stung his pride. But more than all, it
stirred that vague rancor he had felt the first time he had seen Linton
appropriate her.
He did not choose gallant words for reply.
"He has set you on me, has he, to pull me away from what I think is
right? He wants me to be like the rest of 'em, eh? I can be an
understudy for Herbert Linton and an errand boy for the State machine! I
didn't think, Miss Presson, that you--"
"You'd better not go any further, Mr. Harlan Thornton. My affection for
an old man who has set his heart on your success has brought me into
this affair, and I assure you I don't enjoy the situation. You are not
asked to betray any one, or desert any high moral pinnacle, or do
anything else that the moralists say all these fine things about without
knowing what they mean half the time.
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