"Well, you must save appearances, and you must save 'em while you can."
"How am I to save them, I should like to know?"
"By actin' at once. By stoppin' it all before it gets about. You can't have your wife over there in Paris carryin' on. You must just start—soon as you can—to-morrow—and bring her back."
"Not much!"
"It's what you got to do, Randall. She's been unfortunate, I know; but she's young, and you don't know how she may have been led on. 'S likely's not you haven't looked after her enough. You don't know but what you may have been responsible. You got to take her back."
"What should I take her back for?" said Ranny, with false suavity.
"To save scandal. To save trouble and misery and disgrace all round. You got to think of your family."
"What do you mean by my family? Me and my children?"
"I mean the family name, my boy."
A frightful lucidity had come upon Ranny, born of the calamity itself. It was not for nothing that he had attained that sudden violent maturity of his. He saw things as they were.