xious to shield him from any consequences
which might be legitimately his for the way he had acted; but everyone
might hear of it then, and incidentally.... It might reach Miss Eliza.

Ross could not help smiling as he looked down at his daughter, sitting
there with the warm firelight playing over her. She looked so young, so
altogether young, with her slimness and her tumbled hair, and her
childishly quivering red mouth, for all that great unhappiness in her
eyes. And even if she would not tell him the exact nature of her
trouble, Ross was almost positive that he knew what it was. He was well
acquainted with Mr. Bennet, and with Arethusa and Arethusa's worship of
Mr. Bennet, and he had had for some time a rather shrewd idea that Mr.
Bennet really thought a great deal of Arethusa. He knew also what
sometimes happened at dances, especially in rose bowers as romantic as
those that were always a feature of the January Cotillion; Ross had
been to dances himself, in his day, where there had been the equivalent
of Romantic Rose Bowers, in moons and balconies. It was all the same.
He also knew very well just what Miss Eliza's ideas were about such
things, he knew that most of this unhappiness over what had happened
was really due to Miss Eliza's rearing; yet Ross was not going to say a
word which would disclose all of this varied knowledge of his.

Further knowledge he was positive he possessed was that Arethusa would
recover before very long. If she really insisted on going back to the
Farm, Timothy was there to help in the recovery. He would undoubtedly
be of assistance along this line. This last thought almost made Ross
laugh aloud.

But Ross was not so aware as he imagined he was of just the way his
daughter felt. For it did not occur to him, for an instant, that
Arethusa's whole idea of the Wonderful Mr. Bennet had changed; that now
she saw him, instead of as the one Perfect Human Being in a very faulty
world, as a Ravening Wolf ranging within the supposedly Safe Folds of
Society seeking whom he might Devour, all unknown to the parents of his
Innocent Victims; that she felt so deeply humiliated at having
misunderstood Mr. Bennet's Intentions, and at having misconstrued them
to be as Matrimonial as her own; and so deeply disgraced at being
Kissed by him, such a Man as he had proved himself to be; and so
completely terror-stricken at the Bare Idea of Miss Eliza finding out
the very least bit of all this: that Arethusa cou