If I
hadn't called Miss Lang in, Bob Van Brandt wouldn't have known she was
here, and then he would have kept on with Amy. Now he's dropped her it's
up to me to make it up to her somehow."
"It's up to you to make _what_ up to Amy?"
"How dense you are! Why, the loss of Bob Van Brandt."
"But if she didn't have him, how could she lose him?"
"She didn't exactly have him, but she had a fighting chance."
"And she wants to fight?"
"I think she'd be willing to fight, if she saw her way to winning out."
"Winning out against Miss Lang?"
"Yes, if you want to put it so brutally."
"I see you are assuming that Miss Lang is keen about Van Brandt."
"Would you wonder if she were? It would be her salvation. Of course, I
don't feel about her any longer as I did once. I know _now_ she's a
lady, but the fact of her poverty remains. If she married Bob Van
Brandt, she'd be comfortably settled. She'd have ease and position and,
oh, of course she'll marry him if he asks her."
"So the whole thing resolves itself down to--"
"To this--if one could only devise a way to prevent his asking her.
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