"Then, of course, you don't get mad with such," vouchsafed Linda. Then she turned, a slim graceful figure in trailing black, and came swiftly up to Miss Ri. "You dear old thing," she said, "you mustn't get notions in your head like that; it doesn't make any difference; nothing makes very much difference. Suppose he should marry Grace, then I'd have Talbot's Angles."
"And I'd lose you," returned Miss Ri ruefully. "Are you sleepy? No? Come in then, and let's talk over people and things."
"Let's leave out Berkley and Grace."
"Very well, we'll talk of your new cousin. By the way, if Berk has examined those papers he must know the relationship. Possibly that is just what is the matter."
"I don't think so, besides, I had the impression that he had not looked at them. But we weren't going to talk of Berk, you know. Tell me plainly, what do you think of my new cousin?"
"YOU DON'T IMAGINE HE HAS FALLEN IN LOVE WITH GRACE, DO YOU?"
"I think he is an out and out Yankee. Clever enough in some directions, rather whimsical, deadly afraid you will find out what he is thinking about, frightfully cautious of showing his feelings, with a conscience which worries him because his inclination isn't always to follow it exactly, wherein he differs from another who follows his impulses, and whose impulses are always generous ones. Your Mr. Jeffreys sits down and pros and cons for hours. Someone, whose name we don't mention, plunges out, impelled by an unselfish motive, and does the thing that the other deliberates over. Yet I won't say the cousin doesn't do fine honorable things once he makes up his mind it is right. Very likely he rises to his heights by a different process, and doesn't ever make the mistake of over zeal, of going at too brisk a pace like the unmentioned sometimes does. What the latter does is with his whole heart. I think he might almost perjure himself for one he loved; I know he would cheerfully die in the same cause."
Linda, leaning with elbows on table, thoughtfully tapped one hand with an ivory paper-cutter. "You are analytical, Aunt Ri, but probably you are right. Yet, after all if a man, through evolutions of reasoning, reaches a point where his conscience bids him do a noble deed, isn't he just as much to be approved as he who rushes out, never asking for reasons, and does a like noble thing? And isn't he more to be approved than the man who sacrifices his integrity, or does a wrong thing for love's sake?"