"Madam!" he exclaimed, puffing out his breast, "no man would dare ask such a question! For four years the enemy of my country never saw the back of Marshall Adams—and——"
"And you've been retreating ever since," she added.
"From what?" he demanded, slowly purpling with impotent rage.
"From the Present, from things that are," she answered.
"Madam, I'm an old man, I prefer the grandeur of the past to those follies to which you, and women like you, would commit the present."
"But there's Selah, she at least belongs to the Present."
"Selah belongs to me, thank God!"
"She belongs to herself. You are robbing her of her own life."
"No woman ever belonged to herself, Madam, especially a young and beautiful woman. She is an ineffable estate which all men buy with love and hold with all the strength they have."
"For shame, sir! You are a brigand keeping your daughter in a cave."