“Well, for one thing, I have to make sure that he doesn’t become worldly.  Lots of good dogs are spoiled that way.  And I’ve succeeded very well, thus far.  To this moment he believes everything is true that ought to be true; or, if not, that something ‘just as good’ is true, as the people in drug stores tell one.”

“And you are afraid of me—­that I’ll—­”

“One can’t be too careful about dogs, especially one that believes as much as that one does.  Frankly, I am afraid of you.  You have such a knowing way of fighting off moments that might become Peavey.”

“I don’t quite understand—­”

“Of course you don’t, but that’s of little consequence—­to Jim.  He doesn’t understand either.  But you see he has a fine faith now that the world is all Peavey—­he learned it from me.  Of course, I know better, but I pretend not to, and often I can fool myself for half an hour at a time.  And of course I shouldn’t care to have that dog find out that this apparently Peavey world—­flawlessly Peavey—­has a streak of Lansdale running through it—­that it has even its moments of curious, hard suspicion, of distrust, of downright disbelief in all the good things,—­in short, its Miss Katherine Lansdale moments, if you will pardon that hastily contrived metaphor.”

Perceiving that further concealment would be unavailing, I added quite openly:  “Now, young woman, you see that I know your secret.  I felt it in the dark of our first meeting; it has since become plainer,—­too plain.  You know too much—­far more than is good for either Jim or me to know.  You can’t believe enough—­all those things that Jim and I have found it best to believe.  I myself always fear that I shall be led into ways of unbelief in your presence.  That is why I can’t trust Jim with you alone, and why I could hardly trust myself there without Jim’s sustaining looks—­that is why, in fact, that I shall try to shun you in all but your approximately Peavey moments.  I trust now that this shall be the last time I must ever speak bitterly in your presence.  You are sufficiently warned.”

While I spoke she had ceased rowing, and we drifted with the current.  A long time we drifted, and I rejoiced to see that I had taunted Miss Lansdale into something like interest.  I saw that she was uncertain as to the degree of seriousness I had meant my words to convey.  Once she began as if they were wholly serious, and once again as if they had been wholly unserious.  If she at last appeared to suspect that she must effect a compromise, I dare say she was as nearly correct as I could have put her with any words I knew.

“But you had that dog from the first,” she at length decided to say, clearly in self-defence, “and still you are worried and obliged to guard him from evil companions.”

“You confess,” I exclaimed in triumph.

“You had him as a puppy.  Could you have expected so much of him if he had run wild, in a world where any number of good dogs learn unbelief, where they are shocked into it, all in a moment?”