"I don't see why, just because he—did wrong ten years ago," Edith said, "he has got to sidestep happiness for the rest of his life! But as for marrying that Mrs. Dale, it would be a cat-and-dog life."
"Edith," said her father, "when you agree with me I am filled with admiration for your intelligence! Your sex has, generally, mere intuition—a nice, divine thing, and useful in its way. But indifferent to logic. My sex has judgment; so when you, a female, display judgment, I, as a parent, am gratified. 'Cat-and-dog life' is a mild way of putting it;—a quarrelsome home is hell,—and hell is a poor place in which to bring up a child! Mary, my darling, you can derail any train by putting a big enough obstacle on the track; the fact that the obstacle is pure gold, like your idealism, wouldn't prevent a domestic wreck—in which Jacky would be the victim! But in regard to Maurice's marrying anybody else"—he paused and looked at his daughter—"that seems to me undesirable."
Edith's face hardened. "I don't see why," she said; then added, abruptly, "I must go and write some letters," and went quickly out of the room.
They looked after her, and then at each other.
"You see?" Mary Houghton said; "she cares for him!"
"I couldn't face it!" her husband said; "I couldn't have Edith in such a mess. Morally speaking, of course he has a right to marry; but he can't have my girl! Let him marry some other man's girl—and I'll give them my blessing. He's a dear fellow—but he can't have our Edith."
She shook her head. "If it were not for his duty to Jacky, I would be glad to have Edith marry him. And as for saying that she 'can't,' these are not the days, Henry, when fathers and mothers decide whom their girls may marry."
While his old friends were thus talking him over, Maurice was traveling up to the mountains. He had seen Mr. and Mrs. Houghton in Mercer several times since Eleanor's death, but he had not been able to face the associations and recollections of Green Hill. This was largely because, though his friends had, with such ease, reached decisions for him, he was himself so absorbed in indecision that he could not go back to the careless pleasantness of old intimacies, (As for that question of the wheels,—"if—if—if anything happens to Eleanor?"—Eleanor herself had answered it in one word: Lily.) So, since her death Maurice's whole mind was intent on Jacky. What must he do fear him? His occasional efforts to train the child had been met, more than once, by sharp rebuffs. Whenever he went to see Jacky, Lily was perfectly good humored—unless she felt she was being criticized; then the claws showed through the fur!
"You can give me money, if you want to, to send him to a swell school." She said, once; "but I tell you, Mr. Curtis, right out, I ain't going to have you come in between me and Jacky by talking up things to him that I don't care about. All these religious frills about Truth! They say nowadays hardly any rich people tell the truth. And talking grammar to him! You set him against me," she, said, and her eyes filled with angry tears.
"I wouldn't think of setting him against you," he said; "only, I want to do my duty to him."