"Besides, she wouldn't care to leave me."
Angry as she was, there was something in this remark that suddenly touched Sally Fensham. She was hard and aggressive, but her heart was not altogether withered, and under extraordinary circumstances could even be moved.
"My poor Bob," she said, holding the lapels of his coat, and looking up at him; "do you not know that Phyllis may meet a man to-day at dinner, and to-morrow at tea, and the day after drive with him for an hour in the Park--and then what's father or mother or anything in the world if she loves him? Bob, dear, just get it out of your head that you are going to keep Phyllis. When the right man comes you will no more count to her than--than that chair!--Oh, yes, of course, every girl loves her father in a way--but you have only been keeping her heart warm--and once it's set on fire--good-by! And, Bob, dear, listen, is it not common sense to let her see the right kind of young men; to sift them and weigh them a bit? Is it a marriage-market to admit none but those who are presentable and well-bred and come of nice people? Is that a show-window? No, it's giving a girl a chance to choose--the chance I wish to Heaven I'd had. We simply try to get the nicest man there is, and you are more apt to get a prize from a hundred than from six!"
"That applies just as much to Carthage as to Washington."
"Bob, you don't know what you've been risking. Your whole way of living is utterly crazy. Why, anybody--anybody could come here, and make love to her, and carry her off under your nose--some awful commercial traveler or cheap pianist with frowzy hair--Oh, Bob, girls are such fools--such crazy, crazy fools!"
"Phyllis isn't."
"Was I?"
"No, I don't think you were."
"But didn't I marry Sam Fensham?"
"I don't see that that--"