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THE BREATH OF SCANDAL

they are, I think, Billy. He's helped me more than any one else."

"Rinderfeld!" Billy breathed with redoubled loathing.

"Oh, Billy, you and I can't go together on this; for it hasn't done the same to you and to me. It really hasn't made any difference to you at all."

"What do you say?" Billy turned directly to her and with his strong fingers seized her small shoulders and held her facing him. "You've no right to say that; you must be mad, Marjorie. There's never happened anything in my life——"

"That has made you feel as much," Marjorie finished quickly. "Oh, that I know; but it hasn't started you thinking, Billy; it hasn't twisted everything around for you and forced you to find yourself all over again. You're—going on just as you used to. You're separating people, as the Sunday-school cards used to show pictures of God doing, into a flock of sheep and a flock of goats; you see a person, Billy, as good, or you see him as bad. That's an awfully easy and convenient way to class people—as long as you can let it satisfy you. I mean, as long as you can make it work. It tells you just how you ought to do; to know the good people, of course, and admire them and make them your friends and do business with them and to avoid the bad. Now you used to suppose that father was good; and when this happened and you found out you'd made a mistake, that was a big surprise to you and a frightful shock; but it didn't do any more than shock you, Billy. It didn't drive you out of yourself to make over all your ideas; for you simply had to slip father, in your mind, from the side where you keep your list of good men, whom you admire, to the side