"But the promise is so hysterical," argued Bretton. "The sublime adolescent idiocy of the Boy on the Burning Deck, with fame for one generation and caricature for eternity." "I'm not interested in eternity," said Kaire. "What are you interested in?" asked Bretton. "In--myself!" said Kaire. Very soberly for a moment Bretton frowned off into space. "Kaire," he resumed at last rather quickly, [210] "you are making a brutal mistake. Listen! There is a lad up North who was made for Daphne!--a fine lad!--a clean lad! With young energies to match her young energies! And young mysteries to mate her young mysteries! And young problems to steady her young problems! Across the mutual innocence of their little disaster it is absolutely inevitable that each should have received a peculiarly poignant sex-image of the other. Except for you--except for _this_--who knows but what----" "There will be time enough for that when I am through," said Kaire. "Six months--ten--a year at the most." "When you are through?" said Bretton very quietly. "The tender soul of a young girl who marries a man like you--is not over-apt to survive the experience." Defiantly and unscrupulously Kaire delivered his ultimatum. "It is not my responsibility," he said, "where any train goes after I get off!" "That is your last word?" asked Bretton. "It is my last word," grinned Kaire. "And yours, Daphne?" quizzed her father. [211] "I will not break my word!" persisted Daphne. "I will not! I will not!" Her cheeks were raging red as though with fever, her eyes oddly aglint. "I will not! I will not!" she repeated. "All right then, Kaire," said Jaffrey Bretton. "I'm going to smash you!" "Oh, no, you won't!" laughed Kaire. "That's the limitation of good men like you! You'll think you're going to smash me!--you'll have every intention indeed of smashing me!--push me way to the edge!--but never quite over! Something won't let you! Honor, I believe you call it." "I--am--going--to push you--over the edge," said Bretton. "I am going to send for Martha." "Martha?" cried Kaire. His face was suddenly ashy gray. Then abruptly his laugh rang out again. "There hasn't been power in heaven or earth for ten years," he scoffed, "that could bring Martha out of her green jungle when even so much as the smoke of a yacht showed on her horizon! Even if she could slip by [212] her attendant!" he scoffed, "or her Chinese cook!--or----" "Martha is in the passageway--just outside," pointed Bretton. "About three feet, I should think, from where you are standing!" "_What_?" staggered Kaire. "And I am going to push Martha to the edge and over," said Bretton very quietly. "And you to the edge and over--and jump in after you with every wallowing truth I know--if by so doing, the little girl I begot in bewilderment and ignored in indifference--but have found at last in love and understanding remains on the safe side!"