‘Howard!’ She was not trembling now, but rigid.

‘Think that’d be too much? Well, all right. We could wait to get that — maybe months. But I’ve simply got to have a new Tuxedo.’

‘My child, my child! Good-bye, Mr. Yeats! Goodbye, dove-grey edge of the sea and stormy sunset on doomed ships!’ Annabel put on again her mask of country-club vulgarity. ‘What a job I went and picked out for myself!’ She kissed him on the lips. ‘Call me ten tomorrow morning, when That One is off to his den,’ and she fled into the gloomy house, while he wailed, ‘But wait — wait — just minute . . . Aw, Bell, please . . . I’ll be doggoned!’

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https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/l/lewis/sinclair/prodigal/chapter17.html

Last updated Sunday, March 27, 2016 at 11:57

The Prodigal Parents, by Sinclair Lewis

Chapter 18

Three p.m. A June day. Office of the Triumph Motor Agency, also the Duplex Trailer, the Nation’s Movable Home. Mr. Putnam Staybridge calling on Mr. Frederick William Cornplow.

‘How d’you do, Mr. Staybridge! What can I do for you today? Can I have one of the salesmen show you the mid-year model Triumphs?’

‘Thanks, no. Do you mind if I sit down?’

‘Why, no.’

‘Cornplow, I have ventured on a course, somewhat rare in these complex days — I’m quite old-fashioned, you see — of coming to you and speaking directly. Are you aware that your son and my daughter, mere children both of them, and perhaps neither of them very wise, apparently think they are in love?’

Fred was as angry at the smooth and supercilious tone as he had ever been in his life. Sitting behind his desk, he pressed his fingertips together till his knuckles felt as though they were breaking, but never in his life had he sounded more civil:

‘I’ve noticed something of the kind, Mr. — uh — yes, I have noticed it, Staybridge.’

‘You realize that it would be entirely unsuitable for Miss Annabel to marry your son.’

‘Possibly.’

Mr. Staybridge waited for wrath, but had to carry on the play without it:

‘I suppose your son has no money?’

‘Not unless he’s been holding out on me!’

‘Nor prospects?’

‘He tells me he may play in the college team, next autumn.’

‘I’m being serious, Cornplow.’

Fred grunted.

‘And I think that in other respects they aren’t exactly mated,’ said Putnam.

‘Such as?’

‘Oh, need we go into details, my dear fellow?’

Fred tramped the floor for almost a quarter of a minute before he was able to answer with suavity:

‘Want me to tell you what you’re trying to say, Staybridge? No. I don’t suppose you do. But I’ll be doggoned if I’m not going to. The idea is that you come from an aristocratic family, and me and the boy from a bunch of plain farmers and blacksmiths. That’s the bunk. If it were true, which it doesn’t happen to be . . .’

‘Aren’t you rather assuming . . .’