The father was so disgusted with the whole affair that he could only save himself from breaking the furniture by a sardonic taunt:
“Tell our daughter-in-law that if she wants to bring along her camera she can have the ballroom for a studio. We never use it, anyway.”
“Shame on you!” his wife cried. “Don't mind him, Jimsy.”
“Jimsy” reminded Jim of Mrs. Thropp and his promise to ask his mother to call on her. But he had confessed all that he could endure. He was glad to get away without letting slip the fact that “Thropp” had changed to “Dyckman” via “Gilfoyle.”
His mother called him back for another embrace and then let him go. She had nowhere to turn for support but to her raging husband, and she found herself crying her eyes out in his arms. He had his own heartbreak and pridebreak, but he was only a man and no sympathy need be wasted on him. He wasted none on himself. He laughed ruefully.
“You were saying, mother, only awhile ago that you wished he'd marry some nice girl. Well, he's married, and we'll have to take what he brings us. But, oh, these children, these damned children!”
A little later he was trying to brace himself and his wife against the future.
“After all, marriage is only an infernal gamble. We might have scoured the world and picked out an angel for him, and she might have run off with the chauffeur the second week. I guess I got the only real angel that's been captured in the last fifty years. The boy may have stumbled on a prize unbeknownst. We'll give the kid the benefit of the doubt, anyway. Won't we?”
“Of course, dear, if she'll give us the same.”
“Well, Jim said she came from Missouri. We've got to show her.”