"Why, of course. And you?"
She shrugged. "I don't change in one night. Now—I wish you and Jim would leave mother and me—"
Bob acquiesced, glad to escape even in company with his redoutable brother-in-law. When he and Jim had gone Mrs. Knight addressed Lorelei with motherly candor.
"He's a pleasant fellow, of course, and he's crazy about you; but don't let's be sentimental. If there's no chance to make it up with his family we must get out of this mess and save what we can."
"Was Mr. Wharton very angry?"
"WAS he?" Mrs. Knight rolled her eyes in mingled rage and despair. "I'm positively sick over the things he said. Everybody seems to be against us, and—I'm almost ready to give up. But at least you saved your good name—it was a marriage, not a scandal. We have that to be thankful for." She followed this outburst of optimism with another. "You can keep the name and go into vaudeville. The publicity will help you, and that old crank will surely stretch his offer to keep his name off the bill-boards. Of course, we won't get anything like what we expected, but we'll get something. Fifteen or twenty thousand is better than—" Noting the shadow of a smile upon her daughter's lips, she checked her rush of words. "You don't seem to care what—"
"I don't."
Mrs. Knight's face twisted into an expression of pained incredulity.
"Surely you don't mean to live with Bob?" she gasped. "Not—NOW."
"I do mean to."
The mother's lips parted, closed, parted again—she seemed to taste something unspeakably bitter. She groped for words to fit her state of mind, but words failed her. When she did speak, however, the weakness of her vocabulary was offset by the shrill tone of her surprise. "My DEAR! Why, my DEAR! He hasn't a CENT. Of course you're quite confused now—you've been through a lot, and you think he's the only man in the world—but it's impossible. It's absurd. The marriage was only a form. You're no more his wife in the sight of God than—"