Blake Past shook his head. "Proms aren't for parents. You know that as well as I do. That young man you were talking with a few minutes ago—he's the one who should take you. He'd give his right arm for the chance."
"I'll thank you not to imply that you're my father. One would think from the way you talk that you are centuries old!"
"I'm thirty-eight," Blake Past said, "and while I may not be your father, I'm certainly old enough to be. That young man—"
A pink flush of anger climbed into Deirdre Eldoria's girlish cheeks. "What right has he got to take me! Did he scrimp and go without in order to put me through high school and college? Has he booked passage for me to New Earth and paid my tuition to Trevor University?"
"Please," Blake Past said, desperation deepening his voice. "You're only making everything worse. After majoring in Trevorism, you certainly ought to realize by now that there was nothing noble about my buying you after Eldoria died. I only did it to ease my conscience—"
"What do you know about conscience?" Deirdre demanded. "Conscience is a much more complex mechanism than most laymen realize. Guilt feelings aren't reliable criteria. They can stem from false causes—from ridiculous things like a person's inability to accept himself for what he is." Abruptly she dropped the subject. "Don't you realize, Nate," she went on a little desperately, "that I'm leaving tomorrow and that we won't see each other again for years and years?"
"I'll come to New Earth to visit you," Blake said. "Venus is only a few days distant on the new ships."
She stood up. "You won't come—I know you won't." She stamped her foot. "And you won't come to the prom either. I know that too. I knew it all along. Sometimes I'm tempted to—" Abruptly she broke off. "Very well then," she went on, "I'll say good-by now then."
Blake Past stood up too. "No, not yet. I'll walk back to the sorority house with you."
She tossed her head, but the sadness in her tarn-blue eyes belied her hauteur. "If you wish," she said.