"
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."
"Ring for Wotton, will you?"
"What are you going to tell him?"
"The truth."
"Good Lord! Do you dare do that?"
"I don't dare not to. They'll find it out down-stairs quickly
enough in their own way."
"I see. You want to beat 'em to it."
"Exactly."
For years the American world had been discussing the duty of parents
to teach their children the things they must inevitably learn in
uglier and more perilous ways.
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