Selwyn's shoulders shrugged. "Your amazement is feeble to what mine
was. On the train going down he had renewed his acquaintance with a
girl and her mother he had met somewhere; here, I believe, and a week
after reaching her home the girl was engaged to him. Her name is
Swink."

"Is she crazy?"

"No. Her mother is crazy. I don't blame the girl. She's young,
pretty, silly, and doubtless in love. Harrie has fatal facility in
making love. This mamma person has a good deal of money; no sense,
and large social ambitions. She's determined to get there. If only
fools died as soon as they were born there would be hope for
humanity. A fat fool is beyond the reach of endeavor." With eyes
narrowed and his forehead ridged in tiny folds, Selwyn stared at me.
"Have women no sense, Danny? Have they no understanding, no--"

"Some have. But sense and understanding interfere with comfortable
ignorances that aren't pleasant to be interfered with. Does this
female parent know anything about Harrie? Did she let her daughter
become engaged before making inquiries about him?"

"She knows very well who he is. She's visited here several times.
If told of Harrie's past dissipations, she'd soothe herself with the
usual dope of boys being boys, and men being men, and bygones being
bygones." Selwyn's hands made gesture of disgust. "It's a plain
case of damned fool. She deserves what she'll get if she lets her
daughter marry Harrie. But the daughter doesn't. Somebody ought to
tell the child she mustn't marry him. If there was a father or