A flush was just dying
out of her face. "He was the friend I spoke of," she went on.
"You know him very well?" I asked.
"We've known him--always," said she. "I think he's one of my earliest
recollections. His father's summer place and ours adjoin. And once--I guess
it's the first time I remember seeing him--he was a freshman at Harvard,
and he came along on a horse past the pony cart in which a groom was
driving me. And I--I was very little then--I begged him to take me up, and
he did. I thought he was the greatest, most wonderful man that ever lived."
She laughed queerly. "When I said my prayers, I used to imagine a god that
looked like him to say them to."
I echoed her laugh heartily. The idea of Mowbray Langdon as a god struck me
as peculiarly funny, though natural enough, too.
"Absurd, wasn't it?" said she. But her face was grave, and she let her
cigarette die out.
"I guess you know him better than that now?"
"Yes--better," she answered, slowly and absently. "He's--anything but a
god!"
"And the more fascinating on that account," said I. "I wonder why women
like best the really bad, dangerous sort of man, who hasn't any respect for
them, or for anything."
I said this that she might protest, at least for herself.
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