I thought it was such a marvelous thing for
a girl to find. I still think that; and yet, I don't know. If he were
different, had had more experience, perhaps this wouldn't have hit him
so hard. He would have kissed his Mina on the porch, outside the dance,
and come home."
"As for that Raff woman--" Fanny stopped, at a loss for a term to
express her disgust.
"Why not?" Claire asked. "She wanted Peyton and went after him: he
isn't for her art, I believe, but for herself. I haven't talked to her;
I can't make up my mind about that. Probably it would do no good.
Peyton is splendidly healthy; it won't be necessary to tell her
anything about draughts and stomach bands."
"Claire, you're utterly, tragically wrong," Fanny wailed. "I wish I
could shake sense into you. Up to a point this is your fault; you are
behaving in a criminally foolish way."
"What do you think Claire should do?" Lee asked his wife.
She turned to him, a flood of speech on her lips; but, suddenly, she
suppressed it; the expression, the lines, of concern were banished from
her face. "There is so much," she replied equably; "they haven't
discussed it enough; why, it ought to take a year, two, before they
reached such a decision. Peyton can't know his mind, nor Claire hers.
And Ira, that darling innocent little child."
"Damn Ira!" Claire Morris exclaimed.
"You mustn't," Fanny asserted; "you're not yourself.
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