"Of course I don't enjoy them," I admitted indignantly. "You know that. I hate them. I am miserable all the time, simply because of what may happen to you and to Miss Eve."
Mr. Parker sighed.
"There you are, you see!" he declared. "That's the one kink in your disposition, sir, which places you irrevocably outside the class to which Eve and I belong. Now let me ask you this, young man," he went on: "What is the most dangerous thing you've ever done?"
"I've played some tough polo," I remembered.
"That'll do," Mr. Parker declared. "Now tell me: When you turned out you knew perfectly well that a broken leg or a broken arm—perhaps a cracked skull—was a distinct possibility. Did you think about this when you went into the game? Did you think about it while you were playing?"
"Of course I didn't," I admitted.
"Just so!" Mr. Parker concluded triumphantly. "That's where the sporting instinct comes in. You know a thing is going to amuse and excite you. Beyond that you do not think."
"But in this case," I persisted, "I think it is your duty to think for your daughter's sake."
Eve flashed upon me the first angry glance I had seen from her.
"I think," she decided coldly, "it is not worth while discussing this matter with Mr. Walmsley. We are too far apart in our ideas. He has been brought up among a different class of people and in a different way. Besides, he misses the chief point. If I weren't an adventuress, Mr. Walmsley, I might have to become a typist and daddy might have to serve in a shop. Don't you think that we'd rather live—really live, mind—even for a week or two of our lives, than spend dull years, as we have done, upon the treadmill?"