"I am listening."
"You have reared me with the utmost kindness and devotion; you have anticipated my every wish; you have surrounded me with every comfort; and for my sake you have exposed yourself to all the fatigue and discomfort of long business trips. Am I not right?"
"It was not only a pleasure, but my duty to do these things for you, my dear child."
"A duty?"
"The most sacred of all duties."
"To protect me—to be my guide and my support, you mean, do you not?"
"Precisely. It is the duty of every parent."
"That is exactly what I was coming at," said Sabine, with amusing naïveté. "It is a father's duty to protect his child, you say?"
"Certainly."
"But, father, suppose that you should meet with an accident during one of your journeys; suppose, for instance, that you should lose your sight, would I be foolish or idiotic if I did everything in my power to repay you for all you have done for me, and to act, in my turn, the part of guide, support, and protector? Our rôles would be reversed, as you say. Still, what daughter would not be proud and happy to do for her father what I would do for you? Ah, well, why should not a wife manifest the same devotion toward her husband that a daughter manifests toward her father? I am sure you will not be able to refute that argument, my dear father."