“But you said I’d ruin him by marrying him—”
“Never mind that. You—you’re too young to grasp it. And there are always exceptions. If you care for this chap—”
“I don’t really think I do, much,” she said thoughtfully. “Anyway, I simply couldn’t stand making a martyr of him, and having him be the one to do all the sacrificing. But, doctor, what are we to do, if men mustn’t get married?”
He couldn’t answer. To tell the truth, he had thought of marriage so exclusively from a man’s point of view that he had quite overlooked the woman’s. Freedom was all very well, but it wasn’t for the little Mavises of this world. He began to deliberate whether there weren’t certain men who should be set apart for marriage and martyrdom for the sake of the really nice young girls.
He was about to suggest this theory to Mavis, when he found himself before his own door.
“Hurry off home now, won’t you?” he said. “It’ll be dark soon. And see here, Mavis, don’t say anything to your Edward just yet—don’t do anything until we’ve talked it over. Come into the office some afternoon.”
She said she would, and hurried off, in the sunset.
As he let himself in, he heard from the dining-room the uproar which seemed an inevitable accompaniment of the Franklin method. Because playing in the dining-room had formerly been an unimaginable thing rather than a forbidden joy, it was now the rule. The doctor didn’t like it. He wanted his dinner in peace. It was not the sort of dinner he liked, either, and Miss Franklin distressed him by incessantly crunching lumps of sugar.
He retired to his study, where he swore furiously to himself; but for some reason which he didn’t care to analyze, he dared not tell Miss Franklin to take away the children. Nor was he surprised when she knocked at the door, and, being told to enter, did so, and sat down opposite him, prepared to spend the evening.
Crashes, screams, and slaps from the dining-room disturbed her not at all. She said she didn’t believe in supervising children; it hampered them.