"I'm not asking you to do anything. What do you _want_?" "I want to know what you're going to do, my boy." "Do?" "Yes, do." "About what?" "About Virelet. Talk of responsibility, you took it on yourself contrary to the warnings what you had, when you married her. And having taken it you ought to have looked after her. Knowing what she is you ought to have looked after her better than you've done." "How _could_ I have looked after her?" "How? Why, as any other man would. You should have made her work, work with her 'ands, as I told you, 'stead of giving her her head, like you did, and lettin' her sit bone-idle in that gimcrack doll-house of yours from morning till night. Why, you should have taken a stick to her. There's many a man as would, before he'd 'a' let it come to that. Damn me if I know why you didn't." "Well, really, Mr. Usher, I suppose I couldn't forget she was a woman." "Woman? Woman? I'd 'a' womaned 'er! Look 'ere, my boy, it's a sad business, and there's no one sorrier for you than I am, but there's no good you and me broodin' mournful over what she's done. Course she'd do it, 's long's you let her. You hadn't ought to 'ave let 'er. And seein' as how you have, seems to me what you've got to do now is to take her back again." "I can't take her back again." "And why not?" "Because of the children--for one thing." That argument had its crushing effect on Mr. Usher. It made him pause a perceptible moment before he answered. "Well--you needn't look to me and her mother to 'ave her--" Randall rose, as much as to say that this was enough; it was too much; it was the end. "We've done with her. You took her out of our 'ands what 'ad a hold on her, and you owe it to her mother and me to take her back." "If that's all you've got to say, Mr. Usher--" "It isn't all I've got to say. What I got to say is this. Before you was married, Randall, I don't mind telling you now, my girl was a bit too close about you for my fancy. I've never rightly understood how you two came together." There, as they fixed him, his little eyes took on their craftiness again and his mouth a smile, a smile of sensual tolerance and understanding, as between one man of the world and another. "I don't know, and I don't want to know. But however it was--I'm not askin', mind you--however it was"--He was all solemn now--"you made yourself responsible for that girl. And responsible you will be held."