igence would do a thing like that,
Lester. Where is your judgment? Why, you've lived in open adultery
with her for years, and now you talk of marrying her. Why, in heaven's
name, if you were going to do anything like that, didn't you do it in
the first place? Disgrace your parents, break your mother's heart,
injure the business, become a public scandal, and then marry the cause
of it? I don't believe it."

Old Archibald got up.

"Don't get excited, father," said Lester quickly. "We won't get
anywhere that way. I say I might marry her. She's not a bad woman, and
I wish you wouldn't talk about her as you do. You've never seen her.
You know nothing about her."

"I know enough," insisted old Archibald, determinedly. "I know that
no good woman would act as she has done. Why, man, she's after your
money. What else could she want? It's as plain as the nose on your
face."

"Father," said Lester, his voice lowering ominously, "why do you
talk like that? You never saw the woman. You wouldn't know her from
Adam's off ox. Louise comes down here and gives an excited report, and
you people swallow it whole. She isn't as bad as you think she is, and
I wouldn't use the language you're using about her if I were you.
You're doing a good woman an injustice, and you won't, for some
reason, be fair."

"Fair! Fair!" interrupted Archibald. "Talk about being fair. Is it
fair to me, to your family, to your dead mother to take a woman of the
streets and live with her? Is it--"

"Stop now, father," exclaimed Lester, putting up his hand. "I warn
you. I won't listen to talk like that. You're talking about the woman
that I'm living with--that I may marry. I love you, but I won't
have you saying things that aren't so. She isn't a woman of the
streets. You know, as well as you know anything, that I wouldn't take
up with a woman of that kind. We'll have to discuss this in a calmer
mood, or I won't stay here. I'm sorry. I'm awfully sorry. But I won't
listen to any such language as that."

Old Archibald quieted himself. In spite of his opposition, he
respected his son's point of view. He sat back in his chair and stared
at the floor. "How was he to handle this thing?" he asked himself.

"Are you living in the same place?" he finally inquired.

"No, we've moved out to Hyde Park. I've taken a house out
there."

"I hear there's a child. Is that yours?"

"No."

"Have you any children of your own?"

"No."

"Well, that's a God's blessing."