Once more he was wondering if it were not his duty to horsewhip Chalender or to kill him. The horror of involving his wife in scandal restrained him before; now his daughter was concerned.
He pleaded with Immy, wasted commands upon her, and was frozen by her cynical smile. She laughed most at his solemnest moods just as her mother had done. She would mock him, hug and kiss him, and make him hold her cloak for her glistening bare shoulders, then skip downstairs to take Harry Chalender’s arm and go with him in his carriage to wherever he cared to go. One night it was to see the new play Uncle Tom’s Cabin, based on a novel written by a clergyman’s wife, with pirated editions selling about the world by the hundred thousand—six different theatres were playing the play at the same time in London. Another night Chalender set Immy forth in a box at the Castle Garden where Mario and Grisi were singing against the gossip of the whisperers and starers at Chalender’s new beauty. On other nights Chalender danced with Immy at fashionable homes where she could not have gone without him. On other nights they did not explain where they went, and RoBards was held at bay by Immy’s derisive, “Don’t you wish you knew?” or worse yet her riant insolence, “You’re too young to know.”
Patty was frantic with defeat. She and Immy wrangled more like sisters or uncongenial neighbors than like mother and daughter. RoBards was constantly forced to intervene to keep the peace. By paternal instinct he defended Immy against her mother and expressed amazement at Patty’s suspicions, though they were swarming in his own heart. He tried to win Immy by his own trust in her:
“My darling,” he said once, “you are too young to realize how it looks to go about with a man of an earlier generation. Chalender is old enough to be your father. And think of his past!”
“Think of mine!” she said with a tone less of bravado than of abjection.
This stabbed RoBards deep. But he went on as if to a stubborn jury:
“If Chalender were honest, he would want to marry you.”
“He does!”
“Oh, God help us all!” Patty whispered with a look as if ashes had been flung into her face and as if she tasted them.
RoBards snarled: