he would not if she could. That one
asset, for whatever it may be worth by the time the Day of Judgment
arrives, he shall retain. It shall not be taken from him. "After all he
was my father." She admits it, with the accent on the "was." That he is
so no longer, he has only himself to blame. His subsequent behaviour has
apparently rendered it necessary for her to sever the relationship.

"I love you," she has probably said to him, paraphrasing Othello's speech
to Cassio; "it is my duty, and--as by this time you must be aware--it is
my keen if occasionally somewhat involved, sense of duty that is the
cause of almost all our troubles in this play. You will always remain
the object of what I cannot help feeling is misplaced affection on my
part, mingled with contempt. But never more be relative of mine."

Certain it is that but for her father she would never have had a past.
Failing anyone else on whom to lay the blame for whatever the lady may
have done, we can generally fall back upon the father. He becomes our
sheet-anchor, so to speak. There are plays in which at first sight it
would almost appear there was nobody to blame--nobody, except the heroine
herself. It all seems to happen just because she is no better than she
ought to be: clearly, the father's fault! for ever having had a daughter
no better than she ought to be. As the Heroine of a certain Problem Play
once put it neatly and succinctly to the old man himself: "It is you
parents that make us children what we are." She had him there. He had
not a word to answer for himself, but went off centre, leaving his hat
behind him.

Sometimes, however, the father is merely a "Scientist"--which in
Stageland is another term for helpless imbecile. In Stageland, if a
gentleman has not got to have much brain and you do not know what else to
make of him, you let him be a scientist--and then, of course, he is only
to blame in a minor degree. If he had not been a scientist--thinking
more of his silly old stars or beetles than of his intricate daughter, he
might have done something. The heroine does not say precisely what:
perhaps have taken her up stairs now and again, while she was still young
and susceptible of improvement, and have spanked some sense into her.

The Stage Hero who, for once, had Justice done to him.

I remember witnessing long ago, in a country barn, a highly moral play.
It was a Problem Play, now I come to think of it. At least, tha