Lapham waited a while before he said, "Well, now, your mother and I want you should hold up on that a while."
"It isn't for you to say. It's something I can't hold up on."
"Yes, I guess you can. If I know what's happened, then what's happened is a thing that nobody is to blame for. And we want you should make the best of it and not the worst. Heigh? It ain't going to help Irene any for you to hurt yourself--or anybody else; and I don't want you should take up with any such crazy notion. As far as heard from, you haven't stolen anything, and whatever you've got belongs to you."
"Has he been speaking to you, father?"
"Your mother's been speaking to me."
"Has HE been speaking to you?"
"That's neither here nor there."
"Then he's broken his word, and I will never speak to him again!"
"If he was any such fool as to promise that he wouldn't talk to me on a subject"--Lapham drew a deep breath, and then made the plunge--"that I brought up----"
"Did you bring it up?"