"Why not ask her father to speak to her?"

"My dear! As if I hadn't, a dozen times at the least,"

"And what does he say?"

"That Constance shows her sense by not caring for the men _I_ invite to
the house! As if _I_ could help it! Of course with three girls in the
house one must cultivate dancing-men, and it's very unfair to blame me if
they aren't all one could wish."

"I thought Constance gave up going to dances last winter?"

"She did, but still I must ask them to my dinners, for if I don't they
won't show Muriel and Doris attention. Mr. Durant should realise that I
only do it for their sakes; yet to listen to him you'd suppose it was my
duty to close my doors to dancing-men, and spend my time seeking out the
kind one never hears of--who certainly don't know how to dance, and who
would either not talk at my dinners, or would lecture upon one subject to
the whole table--just because they are what he calls 'purposeful men.'"

"He probably recognises that the society man is not a marrying species,
while the other is."

"But there are several who would marry Constance in a minute if she'd only
give any one of them the smallest encouragement; and that's what I mean
when I complain of her being so unimpressionable. Muriel and Doris like
our set of men well enough, and I don't see what right she has to be so
over-particular."