Very soberly for a moment Bretton frowned off into space.
"Kaire," he resumed at last rather quickly, "you are making a 210 brutal mistake. Listen! There is a lad up North who was made for Daphne!—a fine lad!—a clean lad! With young energies to match her young energies! And young mysteries to mate her young mysteries! And young problems to steady her young problems! Across the mutual innocence of their little disaster it is absolutely inevitable that each should have received a peculiarly poignant sex-image of the other. Except for you— except for this—who knows but what——"
"There will be time enough for that when I am through," said Kaire. "Six months—ten—a year at the most."
"When you are through?" said Bretton very quietly. "The tender soul of a young girl who marries a man like you—is not over-apt to survive the experience."
Defiantly and unscrupulously Kaire delivered his ultimatum.
"It is not my responsibility," he said, "where any train goes after I get off!"
"That is your last word?" asked Bretton.
"It is my last word," grinned Kaire.
"And yours, Daphne?" quizzed her father.
"I will not break my word!" persisted Daphne. "I will not! I 211 will not!" Her cheeks were raging red as though with fever, her eyes oddly aglint. "I will not! I will not!" she repeated.