“I owe something to her, too, Dad.”
But Gilder would not let the statement go unchallenged. His heavy voice rang out rebukingly, overtoned with protest.
“What can you owe her?” he demanded indignantly. “She tricked you into the marriage. Why, legally, it's not even that. There's been nothing more than a wedding ceremony. The courts hold that that is only a part of the marriage actually. The fact that she doesn't receive you makes it simpler, too. It can be arranged. We must get you out of the scrape.”
He turned and went to the desk, as if to sit, but he was halted by his son's answer, given very gently, yet with a note of finality that to the father's ear rang like the crack of doom.
“I'm not sure that I want to get out of it, father.”
That was all, but those plain words summed the situation, made the issue a matter not of advice, but of the heart.
Gilder persisted, however, in trying to evade the integral fact of his son's feeling. Still he tried to fix the issue on the known unsavory reputation of the woman.
“You want to stay married to this jail-bird!” he stormed.
A gust of fury swept the boy. He loved the woman, in spite of all; he respected her, even reverenced her. To hear her thus named moved him to a rage almost beyond his control. But he mastered himself. He remembered that the man who spoke loved him; he remembered, too, that the word of opprobrium was no more than the truth, however offensive it might be to his sensitiveness. He waited a moment until he could hold his voice even. Then his words were the sternest protest that could have been uttered, though they came from no exercise of thought, only out of the deeps of his heart.
“I'm very fond of her.”