"
She pondered that. She felt that he was wrong.
"But it does happen, doesn't it?" she had persisted.
He had been accustomed to her searchings for interesting abstractions
for years. She used to talk about religion in the same way. So he
smiled and said:
"There is a sort of infatuation that is based on something quite
different."
"On what?"
But he had rather floundered there. He could not discuss physical
attraction with her.
"We're getting rather deep for eleven o'clock at night, aren't we?"
After a short silence:
"Do you mind speaking about Aunt Elinor, father?"
"No, dear. Although it is rather a painful subject."
"But if she is happy, why is it painful?"
"Well, because Doyle is the sort of man he is."
"You mean--because he is unfaithful to her? Or was?"
He was very uncomfortable.
"That is one reason for it, of course. There are others."
"But if he is faithful to her now, father? Don't you think, whatever
a man has been, if he really cares for a woman it makes him over?"
"Sometimes, not always." The subject was painful to him. He did
not want his daughter to know the sordid things of life. But he
added, gallantly: "Of course a good woman can do almost anything she
wants with a man, if he cares for her.
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