She looked up baffled.
"At least, it's because of what my father said that you—that you—began about Harry Wilbur."
"Well, perhaps."
"I'm very much disappointed in you."
"I'm very sorry."
"I thought you were more—understanding. If you had known my father better," she continued, with all-unconscious irony, "you wouldn't have minded him a bit. It was just a theory."
"Ah, my child, it isn't a theory that we're first cousins."
The note of finality in the low voice pierced her through and through.
"But plenty of people—" she burst out; and then one by one her father's arguments and menaces, like curses, came back to roost. "If we rebel against that law, we and our innocent children are punished," she seemed to hear him say.