“No,” I said, “I didn’t. Nature marked me for a bachelor, and destiny made me a vicarious father. I have been more or less of a vicarious father, Rose, ever since I was twenty-seven, and now I’m sixty-eight: forty-one years of it! I’ve had no time to fall in love, your mother and you have kept me so busy. But tell me about this young warrior. Why should he want to marry you? Have you given him any encouragement?”
“No,” said Rose. “Except to listen to him and show him steps. They all want to talk and be shown steps.”
“It’s a country fit for heroes to dance in,” I said. “And what about the poultry farm?”
“O he told you that, did he?” Rose asked.
“Yes, he told me that. The demand for eggs is something priceless, what?”
“Let’s forget him,” said Rose. “Anyway,” she resumed a moment later, “why must there always be marriage? Marriages so often go wrong. Look at Dulcie Lenox—she’s left her husband already. Look at the divorce cases! Why can’t two people love and get the best of life and then go their own way again?”
“It’s for the sake of society,” I said, “the human family. We’ve all got to help to keep that together.”
“Why should we?” Rose asked. “We didn’t ask to be born.”
“No, but being born, we must play the game. It’s part of the contract. It’s our payment for the privilege of existing at all.”
“Just chivalry?”