Dr. Merrick twirled his thumbs once more, with outward calm, for a
minute or two. This was most inconvenient in a professional
family.
"And I understand you to say," he went on in a pitiless voice,
"Miss Barton's state of health is such that you think it advisable
to remove her at once--for her confinement, to Italy?"
"Exactly so," Alan answered, gulping down his discomfort.
The father gazed at him long and steadily.
"Well, I always knew you were a fool," he said at last with
paternal candor; "but I never yet knew you were quite such a fool
as this business shows you. You'll have to marry the girl now in
the end. Why the devil couldn't you marry her outright at first,
instead of seducing her?"
"I did not seduce her," Alan answered stoutly. "No man on earth
could ever succeed in seducing that stainless woman."
Dr. Merrick stared hard at him without changing his attitude on his
old oak chair. Was the boy going mad, or what the dickens did he
mean by it?
"You HAVE seduced her," he said slowly. "And she is NOT stainless
if she has allowed you to do so.
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