"Roody! For God's sake, Bleema, you're choking your father to death! Roody, for God's sake, don't get so red! Williams--some water--quick! Roody!" "I'm all right. All right, I tell you. She got me excited. Sit down, Bleema--sit down, I said." "Pelz, if you don't mind, I think maybe I'd better be going." "You stay right here, Feist. I want you to hear every word that I'm going to say. If my daughter has no shame, I haven't, either. Williams, call Mrs. Sopinsky's maid, and see that she gets to her room comfortable. Sit down, Bleema!" "My God!--I can't believe my ears--Bleema and such a _goy_ play-actor--" "Please, Rosie!" "A _goy_ that--" "Rosie, I said, 'Please!' Bleema, did you hear me? Sit down!" Miss Pelz sat then, gingerly on the chair-edge, her young lips straight. "Well?" Her father crunched into his stiff damask napkin, holding a fistful of it tense against bringing it down in a china-shivering bang. Then, with carefully spaced words, "If I didn't think, Bleema, that you are crazy for the moment, infatuated with--" "I'm not infatuated!" "Bleema, Bleema, don't talk to your father so ugly!" "Well, I guess I know my own mind. I guess I know when I'm in love with the finest, darlingest fellow that ever--" "You hush that, Bleema! Hush that, while I can hold myself in. That I should live to hear my child make herself common over a loafer--" "Papa, if you call him another name, I--I--" "You'll sit right here and hear me out. If you think you're going to let this loafer ruin your own life and the lives of your parents and poor grandmother--" "Papa, papa, you don't know him! The company are all down on him because they're jealous. Lester Spencer comes from one of the finest old Southern families--" "Roody, Roody, a _goy_ play-actor--" "'A _goy_ play-actor'! I notice, mamma, you are the one always likes to brag when the girls and fellows like Norma Beautiful and Allan Hunt and Lester and--and all come up to the house. It's the biggest feather in your cap the way on account of papa the big names got to come running when you invite them." "Your mother's little nonsenses have got nothing to do with it." "She reproaches me with having brought about this _goy_ mix-up! Me that has planned each hour of that girl's life like each one was a flower in a garden, A young man, a grand young man like Mr. Feist, crazy in lo--" "Mrs. Pelz, for God's sake! Mrs. Pelz, please!" "Rosie, we'll leave Feist out of this." "Lester Spencer, papa, is one of the finest characters, if only you--"