“Oh, it's kind of you to stay, Mr.—ahem. But they really needn't have troubled you. I can get along well enough myself, when it's absolutely necessary. Of course, my daughter will be easier in mind to have some one here.”
“I am very glad to be of service—to so charming a young woman,” says Larcher, very distinctly.
“A charming girl, yes. I'm very proud of my daughter. She's my constant thought. Children are a great care, a great responsibility.”
“Yes, they are,” asserts Larcher, jumping at the chance to show this uninterested old person that wise young men may sometimes be entertained unawares. “It's a sign of progress that parents are learning on which side the responsibility lies. It used to be universally accepted that the obligation was on the part of the children. Now every writer on the subject starts on the basis that the obligation is on the side of the parent. It's hard to see how the world could have been so idiotic formerly. As if the child, summoned here in ignorance by the parents for their own happiness, owed them anything!”
Mr. Kenby stares at the young man for a time, and then says, icily:
“I don't quite follow you.”
“Why, it's very clear,” says Larcher, interested now for his argument. “You spoke of your sense of responsibility toward your child.”
(“The deuce I did!” thinks Mr. Kenby.)
“Well, that sense is most natural in you, and shows an enlightened mind. For how can parents feel other than deeply responsible toward the being they have called into existence? How can they help seeing their obligation to make existence for that being as good and happy as it's in their power to make it? Who dare say that there is a limit to their obligation toward that being?”
“And how about that being's obligations in return?” Mr. Kenby demands, rather loftily.