"I think you do know. Do you mean to have children?" Her big black eyes, dilating, were fixed defiantly on his own.
"Well then, no, I don't!" she replied. He made a desperate effort to think what he could say to her. Good God, how he was bungling! Where were all his arguments?
"How about your religion?" he blurted out.
"I haven't any—which makes me do that—I've a right to be happy!"
"You haven't!" His voice had suddenly changed. In accent and in quality it was like a voice from the heart of New England where he had been born and bred. "I mean you won't be happy—not unless you have a child! It's what you need—it'll fill your life! It'll settle you—deepen you—tone you down!"
"Suppose I don't want to be toned down!" The girl was almost hysterical. "I'm no Puritan—I want to live! I tell you we are different now! We're not all like Edith—and we're not like our mothers! We want to live! And we have a right to! Why don't you go? Can't you see I'm nearly crazy? It's my last night, my very last! I don't want to talk to you—I don't even know what I'm saying! And you come and try to frighten me!" Her voice caught and broke into sobs. "You know nothing about me! You never did! Leave me alone, can't you—leave me alone!"
"Father?" He heard Deborah's voice, abrupt and stern, outside the door.
"I'm sorry," he said hoarsely. He went in blind fashion out of the room and down to his study. He lit a cigar and smoked wretchedly there. When presently Deborah appeared he saw that her face was set and hard; but as she caught the baffled look, the angry tortured light in his eyes, her own expression softened.
"Poor father," she said, in a pitying way. "If Edith had only let you alone."
"I certainly didn't do much good."