Page:Rowland--The closing net.djvu/50

36 because everybody else had always looked me in the eyes hunting for something bad, while Edith seemed to be looking not for, but at, something that was good. It must have been that, for her sweet mouth seemed to soften and she smiled again.

"You are all right inside," she said, quietly. "Your education has been wrong, that's all."

"I was educated for a thief," I answered, in the same tone; "and so far as the education went I was always considered a credit to it." Perhaps it wasn't a nice thing to say, but for some reason I wanted to justify myself. I wanted her to know how I came to belong to the Under-World. Perhaps she understood and wished me to understand that no explanation was necessary, for she said:

"Whatever you set yourself to do you will do strongly, Frank, and without fear. Weakness will never be your fault. How old are you, Frank?"

"Thirty-two," I told her.

"Six years younger than John," she said, "but you look to be the same age."

"Nobody ever discovered the fountain of youth at Cayenne," said I; "a year there is worth five anywhere else."

Miss Dalghren had not said a word, but I felt her watching me closely. She was a beautiful girl, of the big, Diana sort, with a rather square face and blazing, blue eyes; the sort of woman that looks as if she was meant to be the mother of good fighting men.

"Why did you enter this house?" she said.