As if reading Kennet’s mind, Emil’s expression went slightly stern. “You and Asta haven’t gone and done anything stupid now, have you?”

“Paps.”

“Well?”

“No,” Kennet said, lying.

“It’s been a beautiful summer for both of you. I know how you feel—”

“If you know, then—”

“—and I know it seems perfectly plain and simple.”

“Because it is.”

“You’re wrong. Life is more complicated than one idyllic summer. Love is more complicated. Marriage is the most complicated of all, you don’t just plunge into it because you’ve spent three romantic weeks in each other’s company.”

It’s one week more than you and Ma spent, Kennet thought, biting his tongue and clenching his fists. Enraged that war made different sets of rules in different times and places. He was losing patience and temper. Losing his solutions. Now was the time to argue calmly, like an intelligent adult, but everything he could think of to say sounded whining and petulant and stupid.

“Sit down, Kennet.”

“Thank you, I’ll stand. It’s about all I can do right now, short of setting the hotel on fire.”

“Well, don’t do that,” Emil murmured. He offered Kennet his pack of cigarettes. “It’s a hell of a pickle.”

“She’s being pushed to marry someone she doesn’t love.”

Emil lit their smokes and shook the match out. “People in dire financial straits will do dire things.”

“You think marrying for money is a good idea?”

“No. I don’t think marrying someone you’ve known for three weeks because it gets you out of another marriage is a good idea, either.”

Kennet breathed smoke, seething, wanting to tear the world apart. “I’m just supposed to let her go? Paps, you don’t understand.”

“If it’s meant to be, it will work out. Son, believe me, if you were ten, even five years older, established with a good job and security, this would be a different conversation. You’d be eloped to Canada yesterday, Major would be negotiating rings at deWrenne Atelier, and I would be playing dumb.”

Despite himself, Kennet glanced at his father, eyebrows raised. “Really?”

“You’re twenty-two. You’ve never been west of Niagara Falls or south of Syracuse. There’s a whole world out there.” Emil heaved a long sigh. “And possibly a whole war out there, too.”

“Which is why I can’t just let her leave,” Kennet cried through his teeth. “It’s not like she lives in California. She’ll be on the other side of the equator. If we get into the war then who knows what… I’ll never be able to… Oh goddammit.”

“If she wants to do this, if she defies her mother and wants to stay, she can stay. She’s welcome in this house and I will stand by both of you. But…”

“But?”