"But I do let you do as you like, my own. I didn't urge you to go abroad when you said you didn't want to go; and I have never interfered with your theatrical performances so far. You can't say I have." But she did say it. "Yes, you have. You have looked as if you disapproved and have been terribly wet-blankety at times, and Annabel has been simply vile. Frank has noticed it too." "I am not Annabel, nor responsible for Annabel. Heaven forbid! I can't help my looks--nobody can, or most people would--and if I look dull and what you call wet-blankety, it isn't my fault but my misfortune. And I really do try to see things from your point of view, darling: I do indeed: but I can't help my age--again, nobody can, or most people would." Fay softened a little. She even went the length of sitting down on my knee as I sat by the fire, and twisting her fingers in my front hair. "You really aren't so bad after all--considering everything," she graciously admitted. It seemed to me, in my masculine folly, an auspicious moment for presenting a petition to my sovereign. "If I promise to be as nice as I know how for this particular Play, and never so much as show a corner of a wet blanket, won't you give up theatricals for a bit, and turn your attention to other things? It is a pity to let anything absorb you to the exclusion of everything else." The memory of my late father's foot still constrained me to supplicate where I knew I had the right to command. "But you like me to enjoy myself, Reggie?" "More than I like anything in the world." "Then why interfere at all in what gives me such a ripping time?" Then the devil entered into me under cover of my own cowardice. I couldn't bear Fay to think that it was I who was inimical to her pleasure. "Well, sweetheart, it isn't I altogether: I adore you so that if I had my own way I should give you everything that you asked for, and let you do whatever you liked. But Annabel is a woman of the world, and old enough to be your mother, and she sees that this continual theatrical excitement is not altogether good for a young girl. It hurts me to refuse you anything far worse than it hurts you: but while you are so young I cannot indulge you and myself to the extent of letting you do things that may work you lasting harm." I had spoken to my own undoing. Fay sprang to her feet at once like an angry boy. "So Annabel disapproves of my acting, does she? Then you can tell her that I jolly well mean to go on with it! As Frank says, she and you together are choking the life and spirit out of me, and making an old woman of me before my time. And I won't stand it--I won't!" I struggled vainly to retrieve my position; but it was too late. "It isn't so much that Annabel disapproves, darling," I lied valiantly, "but that she thinks so much excitement is bad for you."