It is like building on sand,
or like a vile disease which rots and rots and we know not when it may
break forth."
"But it seems to me that Mr. St. Vincent is the last man in the world
with whom cowardice may be associated. I cannot conceive of him in
that light."
The distress in her face hurt him. "I know nothing against St.
Vincent. There is no evidence to show that he is anything but what he
appears. Still, I cannot help feeling it, in my fallible human way.
Yet there is one thing I have heard, a sordid pot-house brawl in the
Opera House. Mind you, Frona, I say nothing against the brawl or the
place,--men are men, but it is said that he did not act as a man ought
that night."
"But as you say, father, men are men. We would like to have them other
than they are, for the world surely would be better; but we must take
them as they are. Lucile--"
"No, no; you misunderstand. I did not refer to her, but to the fight.
He did not . . . he was cowardly."
"But as you say, it is _said_. He told me about it, not long
afterwards, and I do not think he would have dared had there been
anything--"
"But I do not make it as a charge," Jacob Welse hastily broke in.
"Merely hearsay, and the prejudice of the men would be sufficient to
account for the tale. And it has no bearing, anyway. I should not
have brought it up, for I have known good men funk in my time--buck
fever, as it were.
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