He had of course asked himself how far
it was questionable taste to inform an unprotected girl, for the needs
of a cause, that another man admired her; the thing, superficially, had
an uncomfortable analogy with the shrewdness that uses a cat's paw and
lets it risk being singed. But he decided that even rigid discretion
is not bound to take a young lady at more than her own valuation,
and Christina presently reassured him as to the limits of her
susceptibility. "Mr. Hudson is in love with me!" she said.
Rowland flinched a trifle. Then--"Am I," he asked, "from this point of
view of mine, to be glad or sorry?"
"I don't understand you."
"Why, is Hudson to be happy, or unhappy?"
She hesitated a moment. "You wish him to be great in his profession? And
for that you consider that he must be happy in his life?"
"Decidedly. I don't say it 's a general rule, but I think it is a rule
for him."
"So that if he were very happy, he would become very great?"
"He would at least do himself justice."
"And by that you mean a great deal?"
"A great deal."
Christina sank back in her chair and rested her eyes on the cracked
and polished slabs of the pavement.
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