"Don't, don't be good to me, Mrs.March! I can't stand it.

But you won't, when you know." He began to speak of Stoller, first to her, but addressing himself more and more to the intelligence of March, who let him go on without question, and laid a restraining hand upon his wife when he saw her about to prompt him.

At the end, "That's all," he said, huskily, and then he seemed to be waiting for March's comment.

He made none, and the young fellow was forced to ask, "Well, what do you think, Mr.March ?" "What do you think yourself ?" "I think, I behaved badly," said Burnamy, and a movement of protest from Mrs.March nerved him to add: "I could make out that it was not my business to tell him what he was doing; but I guess it was; I guess I ought to have stopped him, or given him a chance to stop himself.
I suppose I might have done it, if he had treated me decently when I turned up a day late, here; or hadn't acted toward me as if I were a hand in his buggy-works that had come in an hour after the whistle sounded." He set his teeth, and an indignant sympathy shone in Mrs.March's eyes; but her husband only looked the more serious.
He asked gently, "Do you offer that fact as an explanation, or as a justification." Burnamy laughed forlornly.

"It certainly wouldn't justify me.