'd be talk and all, before you know
where you are. It isn't right and it isn't proper."

"No, Ranny, it isn't proper," said his mother; and his aunt said, No, it
wasn't, too.

Ranny laughed unpleasantly.

"You think it's as improper as the other thing, do you?"

He addressed his uncle.

"What other thing?" said Mr. Randall. It had made him wince even while
he pretended not to see it. It had brought him so near.

"What my wife's done."

"Well, Randall, since you ask me, to all appearances--appearances, mind
you--it is."

"Appearances?"

"Well, you must save appearances, and you must save 'em while you can."

"How am I to save them, I should like to know?"

"By actin' at once. By stoppin' it all before it gets about. You can't
have your wife over there in Paris carryin' on. You must just
start--soon as you can--to-morrow--and bring her back."

"Not much!"

"It's what you got to do, Randall. She's been unfortunate, I know; but
she's young, and you don't know how she may have been led on. 'S
likely's not you haven't looked after her enough. You don't know but
what you may have been responsible. You got to take her back."

"What should I take her back for?" said Ranny, with false suavity.

"To save scandal. To save trouble and misery and disgrace all round. You
got to think of your family."

"What do you mean by my family? Me and my children?"

"I mean the family name, my boy."

A frightful lucidity had come upon Ranny, born of the calamity itself.
It was not for nothing that he had attained that sudden violent maturity
of his. He saw things as they were.

"You mean yourself," he said. "Jolly lot you think of me and my children
if you ask me to take her back. Not me! I'll be damned first."

"You married her, Randall, against the wishes of your family; and you're
responsible to your family for the way she conducts herself."

"I should rather think I _was_ responsible! If I wasn't--if I was a
bletherin' idiot--I might take her back--"

"I don't say if she leaves you again you'll take her back a second time.
But you got to give her a chance. After all, she's the mother of your
children. You married her."

"Yes. That's where I went wrong. That's what made her do it, if you want
to know. _That's_ the provocation I gave her. It's what she always had
against me--the children, and my marrying her. And she was right. She
never ought to have had children. I never ought to have married
her--against her wil