Words
merely spoken, he assured himself, can be denied, if that becomes
afterward necessary. Written words, undestroyed, cannot be so easily
escaped.
"Anything I can do for you?" Mr. Lee queried, when Pike hesitated. "You
have a communication, I believe?"
Donald pulled himself together, and the opening sentences of what he
intended to say came back to him. He had thought these out with care,
and they seemed very fine and even humanitarian.
"I want you to know at the outset, Mr. Lee, that in coming to you with
the information I bear I am wholly disinterested. But the truth is due
you. No one else seems to have had the courage to tell you, and I
shall."
Fairfax Lee began to look interested.
"You are very kind," he said, "and I thank you in advance for your
favor."
This was so auspicious a beginning that Pike's courage rose.
"I want to have a frank talk with you about a certain young Yale
man--Mr. Buck Badger. You must have noticed that he is very devoted in
his attentions to your daughter?"
There was no reply to this, though Pike halted, in the expectation that
there would be one.
"I am well acquainted with Badger. In fact, until very recently, he was
my roommate, and we were good friends. Perhaps when I tell you that he
is not a fit man to associate with your daughter, you may think I am led
by the fact that Badger and I are not now the friends we were once.
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