Lita, who had felt a profound filial emotion at seeing her parents together, was now distressingly conscious that they had never seemed less her parents than at this moment. They seemed in fact rather dreadful people—childish, unjust, lacking in essential self-control. The last remnant of her childhood seemed to perish with this scene, and she became hard, matured and to a certain degree orphaned.
"What I am trying to say," Mr. Hazlitt went on, "is that we can hardly attribute this unfortunate episode entirely to the influence of the school. I mean that if there had not been some inherent silliness in the child herself—"
This was too good a point for Mrs. Hazlitt to let slip.
"It was not from me," she said, "that Lita inherited a tendency to run after people of the stage."
"We need not discuss inherited tendencies, I think."
Mrs. Hazlitt laughed.
"Ah, that is so like you! We may criticize the child or the school or my bringing up, but the instant we begin to talk about your shortcomings it is discovered that we are going too far."
"Alita," he said, "I came here in the most coöperative spirit—"
"And do you make it a favor that you should be willing to try to save your child?"
That was unjust of her mother, Lita thought. Her father was trying to be nice. It was her mother who kept making the interview bitter, and yet in essentials her mother had behaved so much better. Why did she suffer so much in the atmosphere of their anger? Why did she wish so passionately that they should treat each other at least fairly? She couldn't understand.