he'd be at the very suggestion of dowry. Parents out here
don't appreciate that conditions have changed and that it's necessary
nowadays for a woman to be independent of her husband."

Arthur compressed his lips, to help him refrain from comment. But he felt
so strongly on the subject that he couldn't let her remarks pass
unchallenged. "I don't know about that, Del," he said. "It depends on the
woman. Personally, I'd hate to be married to a woman I couldn't control
if necessary."

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself," cried Del, indignant. "Is _that_
your idea of control--to make a woman mercenary and hypocritical? You'd
better change your way of thinking if you don't want Janet to be very
unhappy, and yourself, too."

"That sounds well," he retorted, "but you know better. Take our case, for
instance. Is it altogether love and affection that make us so cautious
about offending father?"

"Speak for yourself," said Adelaide. "_I'm_ not cautious."

"Do try to argue fair, even if you are a woman. You're as cautious in
your way as I am in mine."

Adelaide felt that he was offended, and justly. "I didn't mean quite what
I said, Artie. You _are_ cautious, in a way, and sometimes. But often
you're reckless. I'm frightened every once in a while by it, and I'm
haunted by the dread that there'll be a collision between father and you.
You're so much alike, and you understand each other less and less, all
the time."

After a silence Arthur said, thoughtfully: "I think I understand him.
There are two distinct persons inside of me. There's the one that was
made by inheritance and by my surroundings as a boy--the one that's like
him, the one that enables me to understand him. Then, there's this other
that's been made since--in the East, and going round among people that
either never knew the sort of life we had as children or have grown away
from it. The problem is how to reconcile those two persons so that
they'll stop wrangling and shaming each other. That's _my_ problem, I
mean. Father's problem--He doesn't know he has one. I must do as he
wishes or I'll not be at all, so far as he is concerned."

Another and longer silence; then Adelaide, after an uneasy, affectionate
look at his serious profile, said: "I'm often ashamed of myself,
Artie--about father; I don't _think_ I'm a hypocrite, for I do love him
dearly. Who could help it, when he is so indulgent and when even in his
anger he's kind? But you--Oh, Artie, even though