A BAYARD OF BROADWAY
a little too much, and then—the things happened. But since then I've honestly tried to keep to the mark your mother set me. She said to me once, 'If you would only keep as good as you are at your best, Lawrence, you'd be good enough for Helena,' and—perhaps because that wasn't so very good, after all—I've really been keeping there, after a fashion."
Bob stared at him in unaffected amazement. This clubman, this elegant, this social arbiter was standing before him with tears in his level grey eyes. It dawned upon his reckless young soul that the soul of another man was slowly and painfully stripping itself before him.
"We'll let that part of it go," Dillon went on hurriedly, "you couldn't see. I—I think I could make her happy. Bob. I know her better than she thinks. She almost said she'd have me, and then you went on that spree. You nearly broke her heart—I needn't go over it. Only she made a vow, then—it was when she went into that convent-place in Holy Week, and she's never been the same since—and it was about you."
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