"What _can_ she say? I know it's a bit rough on her----"

"You know, and yet you'll take your happiness at the poor child's
expense."

"We've got to. We can't do anything else."

"Oh, my dear----" If she could stop it.... An inspiration came. "I knew a
girl once who might have done what you're doing, only she wouldn't. She
gave the man up rather than hurt her friend. She _couldn't do anything
else_."

"How much was he in love with her?"

"I don't know _how much_. He was never in love with any other woman."

"Then she was a fool. A silly fool. Didn't she think of _him?_"

"Didn't she think!"

"No. She didn't. She thought of herself. Of her own moral beauty. She was
a selfish fool."

"She asked the best and wisest man she knew, and he told her she couldn't
do anything else."

"The best and wisest man--oh, Lord!"

"That was my own father, Mona, Hilton Frean."