“Is that necessary?  Is this a minute in which to bandy words?”

“It’s a minute in which I may be permitted to ask the meaning of your—­generosity.”

“It isn’t generosity.  I’m saying nothing new.  I’ve come only for an answer to the question I asked you before going to South America, three months ago.”

“Oh, but I thought that question had answered itself.”

“Then perhaps it has—­in that, whatever reply you might have given me under other conditions, now you must accept me.”

“You mean, I must accept—­your name.”

“My name, and all that goes with it.”

“How could you expect me to do that, after what happened last night?”

“What happened last night shall be—­as though it had not happened.”

“Could you ever forget it?”

“I didn’t say I should forget it.  I suppose I couldn’t do that any more than you.  I said it should be as though it hadn’t been.”

“And what about Dorothea?”

“That must be as it may.”

“You mean that Dorothea would have to take her chance.”

“She needn’t know anything about it—­yet.”

“You couldn’t keep it from her forever.”

“No.  But she’ll probably marry soon.  After that she’ll understand things better.”

“That is, she’ll understand the position in which you’ve been placed—­that you could hardly have acted otherwise.”

“I don’t want to go into definitions.  There are times in life when words become as dangerous as explosives.  Let us do what we see to be our obvious duty, without saying too much about it.”

“Isn’t it your first duty to protect your child?”

“My first duty, as I see it now, is to protect you.”

“I don’t see much to be gained by shielding one person when you expose another.  What happens to me is a small matter compared with the consequences to her.”

“Your influence hasn’t hurt her in the past; why should it do so now?”

“You forget that there are other things besides my influence.  Her whole position, her whole life, would be changed, if she had for a mother—­if you had for a wife—­a notorious woman like me.”

“There are situations where the child must follow the parent.”

“But there are none, as far as I know, in which the parent must sacrifice the child.”

“I don’t agree with you.  There are moments in which we must act in a certain definite manner, no matter what may be the outcome.  Don’t let us talk of it any more, Diane.  You must know as well as I that there is but one thing for us to do.”

“You mean, of course, that I must marry you.”

“You must give me the right to take care of you.”

“Because it’s a duty that no one else would assume.  That’s what it comes to, isn’t it?”

“I repeat that I don’t want to discuss it—­”