hea?"

"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--"

"You must let me point out that some amount of discussion is needed. If
we didn't have it before marriage, we should have it afterward, when it
would be worse. You won't think I'm boasting if I say that I think my
vision is a little keener than yours, and that I see what you'd be doing
more clearly than you do yourself. You know me--or you think you know
me--as a guilty woman, homeless, penniless, and without a friend in the
world. You don't want to leave me to my fate, and there's no way of
helping me but one. That way you're prepared to take, cost what it will.
I admire you for it; I thank you for it; I know you would do it like a
man. But it's just because you _would_ do it like a man--because you
_are_ do