I have no patience at all with the fatuous mamas and papas who claim the young people are all right. They are not all right. They are a fast crowd and the nation that depends on them and can’t change them is slated for hell. These wiseacres who say there is no flagrant immorality are far off the track. Those who claim young women of today are no different from yesterday are simply blind. They are different, and I don’t mean wholly the emancipation of women since the war. I was always for woman suffrage…Well, I’m not concerned with the causes, as whether or not we parents are to blame. I’ve done my damnedest for Cherry and it hurts to think maybe I’ve failed. I’m honest in believing I’ve not been a bad example for my child. But sometimes Cherry makes me crawl into a dark corner and hide…I’m concerned with the facts of what I’m telling you. I want to see Cherry married to a good and straight and industrious young man. Cherry says he doesn’t exist…Her mother was like Cherry, though not so beautiful. She was willful, intelligent, bewildering. But she had no vices. Now I take it Cherry is about as fascinating as a young woman could be. Perhaps she is all the more so because of this complexity of modern times. She knows it. I wouldn’t call Cherry conceited. She’s not really vain. She’s rather a merciless gay modern young woman who takes pleasure in wading through a mob of men. If she heard her friends speak of a man who was not likely to fall for her, as they call it, Cherry would yell…‘Lead me to him!’ Despite all this I feel and hope Cherry can be saved. Lord, fancy her hearing me say that. To my mind, if she drifts with her crowd, she’ll never amount to anything. She would probably divorce one husband after another. I don’t like the idea. Cherry’s mother left her something that she will have control of in another year. And then of course she’ll get all I possess, which isn’t inconsiderable. Her prospects then, and her beauty, make her a mark for the men she comes in contact with, and their name is legion. I have tried to keep her away from the worst of them. But it’s impossible.”

“Why impossible?” broke in Stephen tersely.

“I gave up because when I’d tell Cherry a certain young fellow was no fit acquaintance for her I would only stimulate interest.