"Your mother and sweet little old father!"
"That's it; they're like two babes in the woods morally. They don't know any gradation except black and white. Virtue and sin. A woman is good or a woman is rotten bad. She falls or she doesn't."
"Oh, I know the relentlessness of that single-track code of right and wrong."
"My stepmother, good soul that she is, would take the last stitch off her back for what she calls honest need, but I've seen her slam the door in the face of one of our neighbor girls in trouble who's come to my father begging for help—medicine. That's what I'm up against, Miss Parlow, keeping from those two old people what their daughter—is."
"Oh, my dear, my dear!"
"I don't know why I'm airing my troubles here. God knows you are bottled up enough about yours, if you have any, but I thought surely you knew. Everyone does. Is it any wonder that my sister's home-coming is a nightmare to me? She doesn't want to come; I can read between the lines of her letter she's fighting it. But you see, Auchinloss is a great man. He's been invited to conduct his own symphony at its American première and naturally has taken this opportunity to bring about her American debut. You can imagine my parents' pride."
"I can see it. Why, your father can't keep his face straight—he's always sort of smiling, slyly, to himself."
"Their daughter, Millie du Gass, coming home with an opera triumph back of her in every European city, the great Auchinloss himself coming to conduct for her American debut. That is the kind of homecoming they're looking forward to and the kind I must make possible for them. My mother, who screams out every girl in trouble who dares to come into the drug store for help!"
When Lilly bade Alma Neugass good night, they kissed, a dark bony hand lingering on each of Lilly's shoulders.
"You've your decision before you yet, Miss Parlow, and you're young and pretty, too. Much as I love that little sister of mine, and can't find it in my heart to blame her, I know that somewhere there are women big enough not to have to pay the price. You—there's something about you—something so, if you'll permit me to say it, so boyish—so clean—so wholesome. You should be big enough not to have to pay the price."