“You have shaved him, my dear.”
“Are you calling me Delilah?”
“You can’t deny that he would never be where he is, doing what he is now, if he were not married to you.”
“What of it? Time he had a little discipline. He needs it and his work needs it.”
“Well, he’s getting it.”
“Are you pitying him because he isn’t as mad as he was when I caught him?”
“He’s still mad, nor’ by nor’east.”
“I’ll make a human being and a big artist out of Jarvis before I am through.”
“Be careful that you don’t lose everything in him that makes him Jarvis.”
“Do you think that I can’t do it?”
“I only say that creation, like vengeance, is God’s. It is dangerous when man tampers with it.”
Upon a sudden impulse, she went to lean over him and kiss his bald head.
“I’ll remember that, Herr Vater,” said she.
As the result of their talk, her reply to Jarvis was not so fierce as she had planned to make it, in her first indignation at his “even you.” She did not pat him on the back for making concessions about the play.
