that you promised to stay with us two
months, at the very least. We can't go around without a chaperon."

Her father's face relaxed as he looked down at her, and he smiled
grimly.

"So we get down to the real reason, at last, do we?" he queried. "I
thought all this solicitude for my health was a trifle unnatural. I'm
useful as a chaperon, am I? See here, girls, I can put in my time more
profitably at the stock exchange, and have a heap more fun. I'll hire a
chaperon for you, or half a dozen, if you want them, and pull out for
New York. What do you say? I don't know the first principles of the
business, anyway."

"Oh, yes, you do, dad!" protested Susie. "You're a perfectly ideal
chaperon."

"I am? The ideal chaperon, then, must be one who never does any
chaperoning!"

"That's it, exactly!" cried Nell, clapping her hands delightedly. "How
quickly you see things, dad!"

"So that's it!" and he stood for a moment looking darkly at his
offspring. "Well, you girls are old enough to take care of yourselves.
If you can't, it's high time you were learning how!"

"Oh, we're perfectly able to take care of ourselves," Sue assured him.
"You mustn't worry about us for a moment, dad."

"I'm not likely to. But, in that case, why do you want me along at all?"

"Why, don't you see, dad, it's you who give us the odour of
respectability. By ourselves, we should be social outcasts, impossible,
not to be spoken to--except by men. It isn't convenable."

"Oh, I see," said Rushford. "The first great principle of European
society seems to be, 'Think the worst of every one.'"

"Not precisely, dad; but no unmarried woman may venture outside the
circumference of the family circle. That's the great European
convention--the basic principle of her social order."

"A sort of 'tag, you're it,' game, isn't it? The family circle is a kind
of dead line--the ring of fire which keeps out the wild beasts. Step
over, and you're lost!"

"Of course," said Nell, "it is only to unmarried women that the rule
applies."

"Oh, certainly," assented her father. "Married women are allowed more
latitude--in fact, from such French novels as I've read, I should infer
that they usually swing clear around the circle! It's a reaction, I
suppose; a sort of compensation for the privations of their youth. I
don't like it. Let's go home!"

"But your promise, dad!" pleaded Sue, permitting the faintest suspicion
of moisture to appear in her dark eyes. "And you kn