"No? But how much more redeeming if you had been."
"Nothing can ever redeem that—night—except—"
"Except?"
"Oh, I don't know—maybe—except—God."
"You funny, funny girl!" he repeated. "I like you."
"I know your kind of liking. You like me for the kind of thing you would protect your wife or your daughter from with all the fury of your little elemental soul."
"I haven't a wife, I haven't a daughter, and I like you."
"No, but you will have presently. Your kind always does and you'll be the ideal family man who telephones home from the office three times a day to see if the baby has taken her cough medicine regularly, and you'll knock the man down that brushes your wife too closely in a crowd, and because of your attitude toward all but your own women you'll suspect every man who even approaches your daughter. In the eyes of the world you're entitled to your wild oats. That's what I am, a wild oat to be sown at your pleasure. If you haven't any letters, Mr. Visigoth, I'm going. I—"
"No," he said, closing his hand over hers. "Don't."
"You force me."