Alan rose indignantly. “Father,” he said, with just wrath, “if you insist upon discussing this matter with me in such a spirit, I must refuse to stay here. I came to tell you the difficulty in which I find myself, and to explain to you my position. If you won’t let me tell you in my own way, I must leave the house without having laid the facts before you.”
The father spread his two palms in front of him with demonstrative openness. “As you will,” he answered. “My time is much engaged. I expect a patient at a quarter past ten. You must be brief, please.”
Alan made one more effort. In a very earnest voice, he began to expound to his father Herminia’s point of view. Dr Merrick listened for a second or two in calm impatience. Then he consulted his watch. “Excuse me,” he said. “I have just three minutes. Let us get at once to the practical part—the therapeutics of the case, omitting its aetiology. You’re going to take the young lady to Italy. When she gets there, will she marry you? And do you expect me to help in providing for you both after this insane adventure?”
Alan’s face was red as fire. “She will not marry me when she gets to Italy,” he answered decisively. “And I don’t want you to do anything to provide for either of us.”
The father looked at him with the face he was wont to assume in scanning the appearance of a confirmed monomaniac. “She will not marry you,” he answered slowly; “and you intend to go on living with her in open concubinage! A lady of birth and position! Is that your meaning?”
“Father,” Alan cried despairingly, “Herminia would not consent to live with me on any other terms. To her it would be disgraceful, shameful, a sin, a reproach, a dereliction of principle. She couldn’t go back upon her whole past life. She lives for nothing else but the emancipation of women.”
“And you will aid and abet her in her folly?” the father asked, looking up sharply at him. “You will persist in this evil course? You will face the world and openly defy morality?”
“I will not counsel the woman I most love and admire to purchase her own ease by proving false to her convictions,” Alan answered stoutly.
Dr Merrick gazed at the watch on his table once more. Then he rose and rang the bell. “Patient here?” he asked curtly. “Show him in then at once. And, Napper, if Mr Alan Merrick ever calls again, will you tell him I’m out?—and your mistress as well, and all the young ladies.” He turned coldly to Alan. “I must guard your mother and sisters at least,” he said in a chilly voice, “from the contamination of this woman’s opinions.”
Alan bowed without a word, and left the room. He never again saw the face of his father.