“Viola told Miss Meek everything _I’d ever told her_,” she said, “all about Ben Forbes saying I was idle, and a p-parisite. Don’t you think that was mean?” I did. And I said so. She sniffed, and then suddenly, she hid her face in her arm and began to cry hard. “I wish--” she whimpered, “I were--_dead_--” And then I got _her_ story. * * * * * This Benjamin Forbes had lived next door to the Parrishes in New York, and he did until Leslie was eighteen, which was the year before she “came out,” (whatever that is) anyway, he used to help Leslie with her lessons, and take her to the Zoo and riding in the park, and he bought her candy, (the hard, healthy variety that comes in jars and is no good, but the only sort she was permitted to eat, and she said she appreciated the fact that his _intentions_ were kind) and he even used to go to the dentist’s with her while she was having her teeth straightened. Well, she said that he never thought of her except as a little girl, but that she _adored_ him, and that one night when she was at a fudge party at boarding school--and she was only sixteen at the time--when the other girls were discussing and planning their husbands, she, Leslie, suddenly knew what sort she wanted, and that the sort was _Ben_. And she placed him on an altar then, (I quote; for Leslie’s style is _not_ mine) and she never wavered once although she had much attention paid to her, and had had two and a half proposals--the half coming from the fact that her father plunked right in the center of the third one, and evicted the suitor, who left in such agitation that he went without his hat. (Leslie kept it for a souvenir) However, to get on, Mr. Forbes’ younger brother wasn’t strong, and so Mr. Forbes bought a ranch and went out there, and he liked it and they stayed. He came back after four years, and offered to take Leslie to the _Hippodrome_, which showed he didn’t know she had grown up, but she suggested a Russian play instead, and he took her there, but she said she could see he didn’t enjoy it, and that he was not pleased with her having matured and that he rather resented it, and he didn’t seem to know how to talk to her, and he acted baffled, and she said that, as he groped, and unconsciously showed his disappointment, _every dream and hope of hers was scattered in the dust_. (I am quoting Leslie again) Well, he left after he had been in New York a week, but the night before he left Leslie asked him frankly why he didn’t like her, (she told him that she could _see_ he didn’t) and then he admitted that he was a little disappointed. “I like girls,” he said, “who can work, and who don’t make playing their only work. All you can do is go to teas and poppycock parties, now isn’t it?” (She said he was gentle, but that he told her all he felt)