"
Sylvia started, and she leaned forward with a look of bewilderment plain
to see in her dark eyes.
"Yes, that's the truth, Sylvia. He has come into a little money, and he
is in the hands of two scoundrels who are leading him by the nose. My
poor girl," he cried, suddenly breaking off, "you must have found
yourself in very strange and disappointing company last night. I was very
sorry for you, and sorry for myself, too. All the evening I was saying to
myself, 'I wonder what my little girl is thinking of me.' But I couldn't
help it. I had not the time to explain. I had to sit quiet, knowing that
you must be unhappy, certain that you must be despising me for the
company I kept."
Sylvia blushed guiltily.
"Despising you? No, father," she said, in a voice of apology. "I saw how
much above the rest you were."
"Blaming me, then," interrupted Garratt Skinner, with an easy smile. He
was not at all offended. "Let us say blaming me. And it was quite natural
that you should, judging by the surface. And there was nothing but the
surface for you to judge by."
While in this way defending Sylvia against her own self-reproach, he only
succeeded in making her feel still more that she had judged hastily where
she should have held all judgment in abeyance, that she had lacked faith
where by right she should have shown most faith.
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