"But I mean it," said her father. "The little fracas at college was only a mistake. Richard Wiltoner's mistake, indeed, rather than yours—except in so far as you dared him into the making of it. Oh, shucks!" shrugged her father. "Everybody makes mistakes!"
"Not mistakes like mine!" flared Daphne.
"Oh, yes, they do," smiled her father. "So, please, I beg of you don't go bad just on that account! Truly, you'd be surprised if you knew how many staid grown people of your acquaintance have made very similar mistakes. Now take Miss Merriwayne and myself, for instance. Twenty——"
With a gasp of horror Miss Merriwayne reached out and touched him on the arm. Her face was stark, but even now she did not 190 lose altogether the poise so long and laboriously acquired. "Some other time—some other day," she essayed desperately, "I will be very glad to—to discuss old days with you. But now— this moment—your remarks—your suggestions are—are ribald. Have you no—no honor?" she implored him.
"None—any—longer that conflicts with my daughter's honor," said Jaffrey Bretton. To the several pairs of startled eyes raised to his, Jaffrey Bretton gave no glance. Every conscious thought in his body was fixed at the moment on Daphne. "Come here, Honey," he said.
With embarrassment but no fear Daphne came to him.
"Let me pass!" ordered Miss Merriwayne.
"It is not convenient," said Jaffrey Bretton.
Across Daphne's tousled head, past Claudia Merriwayne's statuesque shoulder, he stared off retrospectively into space. "What I have to say," he confided, "will take only an instant . . . . Twenty years ago," he mused, "Miss Merriwayne and I were trapped in a situation quite astonishingly similar to Daphne's college tragedy. . . . Except that in our case there were four 191 thoughtless youngsters involved instead of two—and infinitely more kissing. . . . Let me see," he turned suddenly to Daphne. "In your case I believe there was no kissing?"
"I should think not!" raged Daphne.