They'll
tolerate it; but their wives won't; and the kind of women who will
receive and tolerate her are not included in my personal experience.
What a fool she has been!--good heavens, what a fool!"
A trifle paler than usual, he said: "There is no real harm in her. I
know there is not."
"You are very generous, Phil--"
"No, I am trying to be truthful. And I say there is no harm in her. I
have made up my mind on that score." He leaned nearer his sister and
laid one hand on hers where it lay across the hammock's edge:
"Nina; no woman could have done what she has done, and continue to do
what she does, and be mentally sound. This, at last, is my conclusion."
"It has long been my conclusion," she said under her breath.
He stared at the floor out of gray eyes grown dull and hopeless.
"Phil," whispered his sister, "suppose--suppose--what happened to her
father--"
"I know."
She said again: "It was slow at first, a brilliant eccentricity--that
gradually became--something else less pleasant.
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