"But it wasn't your dad, Jean." "Who was it ?" "I--don't--know." "You do! You do know, Art Osgood! And you ran off; and they gave dad eight years--" Art spoke one word under his breath, and that word was profane.

"I don't see how that could be," he said after a minute.
Jean did not answer.

She was biting her lips to keep back the tears.
She felt that somehow she had failed; that Art Osgood was slipping through her fingers, in spite of the fact that he did not seem to fear her or to oppose her except in the final accusation.

It was the lack of opposition, that lack of fear, that baffled her so.

Art, she felt dimly, must be very sure of his own position; was it because he was so close to the Mexican line?
Jean glanced desperately that way.