Page:Willa Cather - The Song of the Lark.djvu/364

 days ago. Facts really don't count for much, do they? It 's all in the way people feel: even in little things."

Thea winced, but she did not answer him. She put the telegram back in its envelope and placed it carefully in one of the pigeonholes of the desk.

"I suppose," Fred brought out with effort, "that your friend is in your confidence?"

"He always has been. I shall have to tell him about myself. I wish I could without dragging you in."

Fred shook himself. "Don't bother about where you drag me, please," he put in, flushing. "I don't give—" he subsided suddenly.

"I 'm afraid," Thea went on gravely, "that he won't understand. He 'll be hard on you."

Fred studied the white ash of his cigarette before he flicked it off. "You mean he 'll see me as even worse than I am. Yes, I suppose I shall look very low to him: a fifth-rate scoundrel. But that only matters in so far as it hurts his feelings."

Thea sighed. "We 'll both look pretty low. And after all, we must really be just about as we shall look to him."

Ottenburg started up and threw his cigarette into the grate. "That I deny. Have you ever been really frank with this preceptor of your childhood, even when you were a child? Think a minute, have you? Of course not! From your cradle, as I once told you, you 've been doing it on the side, living your own life, admitting to yourself things that would horrify him. You 've always deceived him to the extent of letting him think you different from what you are. He could n't understand then, he can't understand now. So why not spare yourself and him?"

She shook her head. "Of course, I 've had my own thoughts. Maybe he has had his, too. But I 've never done anything before that he would much mind. I must put myself right with him,—as right as I can,—to begin