"I think I did."
"Well, now I'll tell you just what I think. There aren't any two girls
in the world that like each other better than those two. But that shows
just how it is. Girls are terribly jealous, the best of them. There
isn't a girl living that really likes to have another girl praised by a
man, or anything about her, I don't care who the man is. It's a fact,
whether you believe it or not, or whether you respect it. I don't
respect it myself. It's narrow-minded. I don't deny it: they _are_
narrow-minded. All the same, we can't _help_ ourselves. At least, _I_
can't."
Mr. Ellett broke into a laugh of exhaustive intelligence and clapped
Gaites on the back.