She listened to him composedly. But his words fell thumpingly enough upon her ears. He had never gone to the pains before of giving her so complete an elucidation of his doctrine.
"There is as little use in our debating the world's social and ethical system," she said. "I am not thinking of myself. There is no reason why I shouldn't acknowledge to you that I don't much care how our relationship affects myself. But——"
"Yes, I know what it's all about," put in Judd. "It's your daughter. Well, I'll have to grant that you've got a big end of the argument there. I've got daughters of my own, and I know how I'd snort around if I thought there was a chance on earth for any of my daughters to inherit my doctrine, my view of the world, the flesh and the devil. That's the finest little inconsistency I possess. I might as well stick in the observation here, while we're all confessing our sins, that I've felt a good deal more like a blackguard than has been comfortable to my self-esteem ever since the night I rounded on your daughter. That, I think, was about the meanest and commonest act of my life. A pretty fine sort of a girl, your daughter."
"I didn't think you had it in you to admit that, and I'm glad that you have admitted it," replied Mrs. Treharne. "Of course your surmise is exactly right. It is on my daughter's account that I have brought myself up with a round turn. It is pretty late in the day for me to do that, I know; but one must do the best one can. We can talk as we please about our opinions of morals and ethics and the world's harsh rules; but all of our talk vanishes into murky vapor when we begin to consider our children. The most contemptible act of my life, since you have so unexpectedly acknowledged yours, was in permitting my daughter to come here. You know that as well as I do—now."
Judd lit another cigar and smoked in silence for a time.
"The thing that gets me around the throat in connection with all this," he said, presently, "is that it seems all to simmer down to the fact that you are thinking of quitting me."
"Don't be absurd, Fred," said Mrs. Treharne. "That consideration doesn't disturb you a whit. You know very well that you will be glad to be rid of me."
"That," said Judd, leaning toward her, his small eyes curiously alight, "is not true, and you know it."
"But," she said, perhaps, with the unconquerable desire of the woman for affection and admiration, curious to hear his reply, "I have lost my looks; I am a mere relic of what I was when I came to you; I am not far from forty. You know these things."
"Yes, I know them," said Judd, and there was genuine feeling in the man's tone. "But I know, too, that I care a damned sight more for you than I ever did for any other woman in all my life. I know that, if you really mean to go through with this plan of quitting me, it's going to knock me sky-high. I can't figure myself being without you. You have grown into my scheme of living. I don't profess to much when it comes to morals and all that sort of thing; but I've got a heart built upon some kind of a pattern, I suppose; I must have, and you ought to know it, for you've possessed it for years. And, that being the case—and it is the case—our relationship isn't so bad as you might have been supposing it to be. Don't you imagine that I am so infernally dried up as to what is called the affections. I know that my life won't be worth much to me after you go out of it."