A voice hailed Jack. Colter was hurrying up the street, plainly excited. Kilmeny moved a few steps toward him.
Lady Jim took advantage of his absence to attack Moya from another angle. "My dear, I wish I could show you how much depends on a similarity of tastes, of habits, of standards. Matrimony means more than love. It means adjustment."
"I've thought of that too. But ... when you love enough that doesn't help the adjustment?" asked the girl naïvely.
She had appealed to Farquhar. That gentleman came to her assistance. "It does."
"This isn't a matter to be decided merely by personal preference," urged the older woman. "There may be—consequences."
The color beat into the face of the young woman in a wave, but her eyes held steadily to those of Lady Farquhar.
"I ... hope so."
"Bravo, Moya!" applauded her guardian, clapping his hands softly.
"Don't you think they—the consequences—deserve a better chance than you will give them?"
"I'll answer that, Di," spoke up Farquhar. "When a girl chooses for the father of her children a man who is clean and strong and virile, and on top of that her lover, she is giving them the best possible chance in life."