Why Marry? Part 54

THEODORE

Locked herself up in her room, John, crying her little heart out!

JOHN

Rex is a changed man, I tell you. We've got to patch it up, and we've got to do it _quick_!

LUCY

But, John! When the Bakers hear about Helen ... Rex marry into our family? Never! We're disgraced, John, disgraced!

JOHN

[_impatiently_]

But they're not _going_ to hear about Helen. No one knows, and no one _will_. Helen has simply returned to Paris to complete her scientific research. My press-agent--he's attending to all that.

THEODORE

But questions, gossip, rumor--it's bound to come out in time!

JOHN

In time; but meanwhile, if Jean marries Rex, the Bakers will _have_ to stand for it. What's more, they'll make _other_ people stand for it.

Backed by the Bakers, no one will _dare_ turn us down.... Our position in the world, my business relations with the old man--_everything hangs on little Jean_ now. Tell her I've simply got to see her. [_LUCY hesitates._] Hurry! Rex is coming over later. [_He catches sight of the table, festoons, etc._] Heavens! What's all this tomfoolery?

LUCY

[_going_]

Uncle Everett's orders--he wouldn't stop to explain. He left word to summon the whole family for dinner.

[_LUCY goes._

JOHN

[_shrilly_]

The whole family!... To-day of all days!

THEODORE

John! You must not, shall not, force Jean to marry this man.

JOHN

[_unappreciated_]

Haven't I done everything for my sisters? Can't they even _marry_ for _me_?

THEODORE

The man she loves or none at all.

JOHN

That cub at the law school? No money to keep a wife, no prospects of any. His father's a college professor.

THEODORE

[_shaking head sadly_]

"No love without marriage, no marriage without--money!" Ernest Hamilton's words this morning, when we walked to church.

JOHN

[_watching house expectantly_]

Survival of the fittest, Theodore, survival of the fittest.

THEODORE

The fittest for what?--for making money! the only kind of fitness encouraged to survive, to reproduce its species.

JOHN

If the ability to make money is not the test of fitness, what is?

THEODORE

Then you are more fit than a hundred Hamiltons, are you? And Rex? How fit is he? Rex never made a cent in his life.