“Oh, in this sort of thing it doesn’t seem the question of suffering.  If there’s wrong done the penalty doesn’t right it.”

The notion struck Verrian’s artistic sense.  “That’s true.  That would make the ‘donnee’ of a strong story.  Or a play.  It’s a drama of fate.  It’s Greek.  But I thought we lived under another dispensation.”

“Will she try to get more of the kind of thing she was doing for Mrs. Westangle at once?  Or has she some people?”

“No; only friends, as I understand.”

“Where is she from?  Up country?”

“No, she’s from the South.”

“I don’t like Southerners!”

“I know you don’t, mother.  But you must honor the way they work and get on when they come North and begin doing for themselves.  Besides, Miss Shirley’s family went South after the war—­”

“Oh, not even a real Southerner!”

“Mother!”

“I know!  I’m not fair.  I ought to beg her pardon.  And I ought to be glad it’s all over.  Shall you see her again?”

“It might happen.  But I don’t know how or when.  We parted friends, but we parted strangers, so far as any prevision of the future is concerned,” Verrian said.

His mother drew a long breath, which she tried to render inaudible.  “And the girl that asked her the strange questions, did you see her again?”

“Oh yes.  She had a curious fascination.  I should like to tell you about her.  Do you think there’s such a thing as a girl’s being too innocent?”

“It isn’t so common as not being innocent enough.”

“But it’s more difficult?”

“I hope you’ll never find it so, my son,” Mrs. Verrian said.  And for the first time she was intentionally personal.  “Go on.”

“About Miss Andrews?”

“Whichever you please.”

“She waylaid me in the afternoon, as I was coming home from a walk, and wanted to talk with me about Miss Shirley.”

“I suppose Miss Shirley was the day’s heroine after what had happened?”

“The half-day’s, or quarter-day’s heroine, perhaps.  She left on the church train for town yesterday morning soon after I saw her.  Miss Andrews seemed to think I was an authority on the subject, and she approached me with a large-eyed awe that was very amusing, though it was affecting, too.  I suppose that girls must have many worships for other girls before they have any worship for a man.  This girl couldn’t separate Miss Shirley, on the lookout for another engagement, from the psychical part she had played.  She raved about her; she thought she was beautiful, and she wanted to know all about her and how she could help her.  Miss Andrews’s parents are rich but respectable, I understand, and she’s an only child.  I came in for a share of her awe; she had found out that I was not only not Verrian the actor, but an author of the same name, and she had read my story with passionate interest, but apparently in that unliterary way of many people without noticing who wrote it; she seemed to have thought it was Harding Davis or Henry James; she wasn’t clear which.  But it was a good deal to have had her read it at all in that house; I don’t believe anybody else had, except Miss Shirley and Miss Macroyd.”