I replied. "I have been rude. I hope you'll
forgive me."

"You _are_ a philosopher, I see," she said with a smile. "I am sorry
to annoy you."

"Y--you don't, I think. You seem to be a sensible sort of a person."

She smiled again most cheerfully.

"Don't bother, Mr. Canby. We're well met. I'm not fond of meaningless
personalities--or the authors of them."

She really was a proper sort of a person. Her conversation had no
frills or fal-lals, and she wasn't afraid to say what she thought.
Presently we began speaking the same language. We talked of the
country, the wonderful weather and of Jerry, to whom it seemed she had
taken a fancy.

"You've created something, Mr. Canby--a rare thing in this age--" she
looked off into the distance, her eyes narrowing slightly. "But he
can't remain as he is."

"Why not?" I asked quickly. "Knowledge of evil isn't impurity."

"It will permeate him."

"No. He will repel it."

She smiled knowingly.

"Impossible. Society is rotten. It will tolerate him, then resent him,
and finally," she made a wide gesture, "engulf!"

"I'm not afraid," I said staunchly.

"You should be. He's in danger--" She stopped suddenly. "I mean--" She
paused again, and then said evenly, "It seems a pity to me, that's
all."

"What's a pity?"

"That all your teaching must end in failure."

"H-m! You haven't a very high opinion of your fellows."

"No, men are weak."

"Jerry isn't weak."

"He's human--too human."

"One can be human and still be a philosopher--"

"No."

"But he knows the good from the bad."

"Oh, does he? And if the bad is masquerading? It is always. You think
he would recognize it?"

She was speaking in riddles, and yet it seemed to me with a purpose.

"What do you mean, Miss Gore?"

"Merely that such innocence as his is dangerous."

It was an unusual sort of a conversation to be engaged in with a woman
I had known but twenty minutes. I think she felt it, too. There was
some restraint in her manner, but I realized that her interest in
Jerry was driving her, if against her better judgment, with a definite
design that would not balk at trifles.

"You seem to know a great deal about Jerry," I said at last. "Who has
told you?"

"My eyes are tolerably good, Mr. Canby, my ears excellent."

I would have questioned further, but Jerry and the Van Wyck girl at
this moment came out on the terrace. Jerry was laughing.

"Caught in the act," he cried, as they came down to joi