Winnie looked up.
“I haven’t broken it off.”
“And do you intend to marry them both?”
She quickly closed the book and went up to him.
“Oh, papa, you must help me,” she cried. “I’m simply distracted and I don’t know what to do.”
“But which of them do you propose to marry?”
“Oh, don’t be unkind, father. Except for you I should never have met that man. I hate him. I’m ashamed that he ever kissed me.”
“Which, my love?” he asked, as though quite perplexed. “I have every reason to believe that both embraced you.”
“Papa!”
There was a pause. The Canon felt that he would be wanting in his paternal duties if he took again to his bosom a prodigal daughter without pointing out clearly the nature of her misdeeds. Some reproof, tender but dignified, gentle but explicit, was surely needed. The child had flatly disobeyed his commands.