"Oh, yes, I have people—a mother and a father and then some more," Mary informed him. "Nice people, almost as proper in their notions as you are."
Anthony merely stared at her numbly. Unconsciously, perhaps, she had driven the last, long nail into his coffin. Her people! Momentarily, he had forgotten that she might have people and might have to explain to them just where last night had been passed. But now that she mentioned a father, it seemed to Anthony that he could see a mighty man, a man of wrath and muscle and perhaps a man who could slay with one blow and—oh, there was no other way!
All his life, Anthony had shied from woman. All these last twenty-five years he had thanked his lucky stars that one of them had never snared him! He had been alone, to live as he pleased and act as he pleased and think as he pleased; married men do not do that, as witness Johnson Boller, ensnared by Beatrice, a decent enough young woman but his ruler.
Yes, up to the age of forty-five he had been alone and contented, year in and year out, indulging every little foible without a soul to question, going as he liked and coming as he liked.
But that was over now! That was over and done with, forever! Anthony Fry, with a tiny groan, looked up from his plate and faced Mary.
"Young woman," said he deeply, solemnly enough to cause Johnson Boller to stop quaking and take to staring, "I have avoided women all my life."
"Yes?" Mary said.
"I have done so," Anthony went on steadily, marching to the gallows as a brave man should, with never a falter once he was started, "because to my—possibly eccentric—mind, matrimony has no attractions. The bachelor state, I fondly imagined, was to be my chosen state until death."
Mary looked him over rather too critically, examining the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and considering the extreme width of his part.
"That was a good enough idea," she said heartily. "What has it to do with getting me out of here?"