"I saw his father only last week, and he told me Bart was in Brazil.

That is some thousand of miles from Paris, but a little thing like that in geography doesn't seem to make much difference to some of our good people.

Why do you listen to such nonsense ?" he added as he kissed her tenderly and, with a pat on her cheek, left the room for his study.

His mother's talk had made but little impression upon him.

Gossip of this kind was always current when waifs like Archie formed the topic; but it hurt nobody, he said to himself--nobody like Jane.
Sitting under his study lamp looking up some complicated case, his books about him, Jane's sad face came before him.