"You have not met me in a coöperative spirit," her father was saying, "and I see no point in my staying. Good night."
"And you're going--just like that--without doing anything at all?"
"Of course, I shall write to Miss Barton--and if you are not able to take Lita back to school tomorrow I'll go myself."
Lita noticed that though an instant before her mother had reproached him with indifference, she treated his last suggestion as if it were impertinent.
"I think I shall be able to take my daughter safely to school," she said. "But you must see this man; that I cannot do."
"I shall do nothing so ridiculous," said Mr. Hazlitt. "Valentine! Why, a man like that gets a basketful a day of letters from idiotic women of all ages! He's bored to death by them."
"I have yet to find a man who is bored by the adoration of idiotic women," said Mrs. Hazlitt, and there was no mistake in anybody's mind as to what she meant by that.
A discussion on the relative idiocy of the sexes broke out with extraordinary violence. Lita's conduct was utterly forgotten. She might have slipped out of the room without being noticed, except that her father was standing between her and the door. She tried to remember Dacer's saying that quarreling meant love, and found to her surprise that that idea was almost as shocking. Could it be that she did not want her parents to have any emotions at all?
When her father had gone, her mother burst into tears.
"I am so sorry," she said, "that you should have seen him like that--at his very worst."
Lita had just been thinking how much the better of the two he had appeared. She felt as hard as a stone. She had no wish to be continually appraising her parents; they left her no choice. Her childish acceptance of them had been destroyed, and at the moment her friendly emotion towards them as companions and human beings had not yet flowered. Instead of wanting to tell her mother about Dacer, she wanted to tell Dacer about her mother.
She saw that her whole scheme about Valentine had been ridiculous--a complete failure. She ought to clear that up at once, but she did not feel up to explaining it; an explanation with her mother involved so much. Mrs. Hazlitt would give those she loved anything in the world--except her attention. It was necessary to hold her attention with one hand and feed her your confidence with the other. Lita was too exhausted to attempt it that evening. She would do it the next day, of course.