Page:An American Girl in India.djvu/78

 'It's no use,' he said presently. 'There's nothing for it but to let him go his own way and buy his own experience. And, by Jove! he'll buy it dear.' 'He must not be allowed to do that,' I said decidedly. 'I told you—I look to you to save him.'

'My dear Miss Fairfax,' he said mildly, 'believe me, I did my best in the most tactful way I could. But you know what young Tenison is—loyal to the core to anyone he counts a friend.' I did know, but I wasn't going to admit that I saw it as a reason to excuse his failure.

'Surely,' I said rather stiffly, 'surely you put the case before him in such a light that he couldn't fail to see it.' 'Nothing on earth could move him, I believe,' he returned disgustedly. 'What do you think the young idiot said to me? " "Have you ever been in love?" he asked quietly, when I had put things pretty plainly to him. Well, being a married man with three children, what could I answer him? "And would you listen to anything that anybody told you against the woman you loved?" he went on. Being a married man, again, what could I answer? "And unless you respected the man very much who told you these things," he said finally, with that frank, honest look of his, "wouldn't you feel justified in knocking him down?" Well, after that, what could I do but clear out?' 'You ought not to have allowed him to ask you such questions,' I said severely; 'it was fatally weak.'

'Yes,' said Major Street quite humbly. How I do