"I don't see how that is to be accomplished," said Ammon, "but I am perfectly willing. There is no reason why you should not meet her, except that she probably would lose her temper and insult you."
"Not to any extent," said Elnora calmly. "I have a tongue of my own, while I am not without some small sense of personal values."
Ammon glanced into her face and began to laugh. Very different of facial formation and colouring, Elnora at times closely resembled her mother. She joined in Ammon's laugh a little ruefully.
"The point is this," she said. "Some one is going to get hurt, most dreadfully. If the decision as to who it shall be rests with me, I must know it is the right one. Of course, no one ever hinted it to you, but you are a very attractive man, Philip. You are mighty good to look at, and you have a trained, refined mind, that makes you most interesting. For years Edith Carr has felt that you were hers. She has lived expecting to assume the closest relations of life with you. She has thought of you as hers, and you were hers. Now, how is she going to change? I have been thinking—thinking deep and long, Phil. If I were in her place, I simply could not give you up, unless you had made yourself unworthy of love. Undoubtedly, you never seemed so desirable to her as just now, when she is told she can't have you. What I think is that she will come to claim you yet."
"You overlook the fact that it is not in a woman's power to throw away a man and pick him up at leisure,"
