My father drew himself up very straight, and looked very handsome and stern, for a moment. Then his frame relaxed and his eyes twinkled, and he said, "Die? Kill herself? My grandmother!"
"Oh, father," I cried, "don't! Don't! She is all the world to me. You talk as if——"
"I talk as if she was an excellent example of the modern American wife in what the papers call 'society.' And that is precisely what she is. You know that as well as I do. Just because you love her is no reason for pretending that she's a saint and a martyr and the victim of a grand historical passion. She is lovely to look at. She is charming to be with. But that doesn't prevent her from being a bad little egg."
"Father," I said, as gently as I could, "I love her with all my heart. Why, she's like a little child, and she's being so hurt. You've never refused me anything. Help me to make her happy."
"When she has gotten over her fancy for you, when Fulton has plenty of money for her to spend, she will be as happy as she deserves to be—until she makes herself miserable again by indulging in some affair similar to this. Now, my dear boy, go back to her, tell her that you haven't enough money to elope on and no way of getting it. Tell her also that if at the end of a year's probation you and she still want each other, nobody will oppose you, and that you, on the day of your marriage to her, will be made a rich man in your own right."
"Father, I want her so."
"And I want champagne so," said my father. "And the accursed doctor has forbidden it. Do I torture myself? Not at all. I turn for solace to an excellent bottle of Scotch whiskey. And this has at least the effect of making me want the champagne less. Don't get confused between psychology and physiology. If I were in your boots I'd slip over to Paris—and drink Scotch whiskey."
So I went back to New York, and, as soon as possible, I talked to Lucy over the telephone, and told her about the interview with my father.
"But," I finished, "we'll do whatever you say. We can't very well land in Europe without any money; but I've still got most of the passage money; and if you say so, we can stay right in this country and live on that for a few weeks, while I try to get a job. I could borrow some money, but it would have to be paid back. Oh, Lucy, this is such a humiliating confession to make, but what can I do?"
"Everybody is against us," she said, "everything—I don't suppose there's any use struggling."