"Just so. Fine men if they could have had a chance to look over the hedge of their own potato plot. Miss Bertha has made a protégé of the son. Nothing could be more kind and proper, for she has distinction of manner which could never be misunderstood except by the ignorant. In this case it is doing mischief. The General thought I had better mention it to you." "Why to me?" "Well, we're trying to work up this region. If these ladies were to leave, it would be a distinct loss. If they stay, their friends will visit them; there is a spell about the beauty of the place; people with means always return." "Have they friends?" Durgan in lazy manner asked a question he had asked two weeks before; the answer was the same. "Very regular correspondence, I understand." "Is it the money young Godson aspires to?" "I am inclined to think it may be love, which is worse; it would create much more feeling on both sides, for they are women of culture and refinement. That is why we thought you might be willing to warn her." Durgan mused. He was convinced that the story of the sisters and their solitude was not the simple reading that his cousins supposed; convinced also that what his cousin called their "culture and refinement" was of a higher cast, because based on higher ethical standards, than the Blounts, father or son, would be likely to understand. "The affair is not at all in my line." Durgan spoke with haughty indolence. "Why choose me to interfere?" "But I assure you young Godson is going ahead. I tell you I positively heard his father chaffing him about her in the post-office; all the men were about." "That is intolerable," said Durgan, sternly. "What did you do?" "It is not as if these men were not given to humorous nonsense between themselves. I could only assume it to be nonsense." "That would make it more sufferable." "I should only have injured my own popularity, and they would have held on their own way. And, after all, if ladies leave their family and choose to live unprotected except by their dogs, it amounts to saying to us and to all that they are able to protect themselves. And," added Blount, "if they knew of this fellow's folly they could protect themselves. The General would ride over any afternoon; but neither he nor I am on terms to broach so delicate a subject."