"I ask you again, Bleema, to cut out such talk while I got the strength left to hold in. It's a nail in my coffin I should live to talk such talk to my little daughter, but it's got to where I've got to say it. Lester Spencer and the fine character you talk about--it's free gossip in all the studios--is one of the biggest low-lifes in the picture-world. He has a reputation with the women that I'm ashamed to mention even before your mother, much less her daughter--" "Oh, I know what you mean! Oh, you're like all the rest--down on him. You mean that silly talk about him and Norma Beautiful--" "Oh my God, Roody, listen to her!" "I can clear that up in a minute. He never cared a thing for her. It was just their always playing in the same pictures, and that silly matinee public, first thing he knew, got to linking their names together." "Bleema--for God's sake--baby--what do you know about such?" "Bleema, you're killing your mother! Your mother that used to rock you in your cradle while she stitched on the machine to buy you more comforts--a mother that--" "Oh, if you're going to begin that!" "Your poor old grandmother--don't she mean nothing? You saw how she looked just now when they took her out, even before she knows what it's all about--" "I hope she never has a worse trouble than for me to marry the best--" Then Mr. Pelz came down with crashing fist that shattered an opalescent wine-glass and sent a great stain sprawling over the cloth. "By God, I'll kill him first! The dirty hou--" "Pelz, for God's sake, control yourself!" 'I'll kill him, I tell you, Feist!" "Roody!" "You can't scare me that way, dad. I'm no baby to be hollered at like that. I love Lester Spencer, and I'm going to marry him!" "I'll kill him; I'll--" "Roody, Roody, for God's sake! 'Sh-h-h, the servants! Williams, close quick all the doors. Roody, for my sake, if not your child's! Mr. Feist, please--please make him, Mr. Feist!" "Pelz, for God's sake, man, get yourself together! Excitement won't get you anywheres. Calm down. Be human." Then Mr. Pelz sat down again, but trembling and swallowing back with difficulty. "She got me wild, Feist. You must excuse me. She got me wild --my little girl--my little flower--" "Papa--dad darling! Don't you think it kills me, too, to see you like this? My own darling papa that's so terribly good. My own darling sweet mamma. Can't you see, darlings, a girl can't help it when--when--life just takes hold of her? I swear to you--I promise you that, when you come to know Lester as I know him you'll think him as fine and--and gorgeous as I do. Mamma, do you think your little Bleema would marry a man who doesn't just love you, and dad, too? It isn't like Lester is a nobody--a high-salaried fellow like him with a future. Why, the best will be none too good! He loves you both--told me so to-day. The one aim in his life is to do big things, to make you both proud, to make his name the biggest--"