make out what happened and show us that it was something different from what we think—if you can. Your cousin surely would like to think of it differently, if she could. I would; I've no object whatever in wanting to believe that something happened up there that didn't. Do you think I have?"
"I don't know!" Bennet blustered. "I haven't thought much about you. What do I know about you, anyway?"
"I'm willing for you, and for all your family to know everything about my connection with this affair. In fact, I want you to," Barney said. "Before you came, I was wondering what would be the best way to tell it to you—your people, I mean, and Miss Carew's. For, you see, in order to protect me—she thought it was protecting me—your cousin has been putting herself in a false position with you all; or at least in a very hard one, which others are pretty sure to misunderstand. So since I am in town now and expect to see her often—in fact, I'm taking her out this evening—I want you all to know exactly what we are doing and why."
This caught Ethel scarcely less aghast than it did Bennet; but she saw that Barney meant it, and the next instant after her surprise, she realized the good sense in him. He was not undertaking the task of himself further informing Bennet; he now asked her to do it. He would go away and return for her after supper.
So, during the next hour while their delayed dinner waited, Ethel patched out her previous account to Bennet of the happenings at St. Florentin with a statement of the circumstances which preceded her meeting with Barney. Of course, she did not repeat the merely personal details of Barney's early life which he
