'
'Intervene!' echoed Marion. Somehow she did not like the word. Not at
that moment, I mean.
'Yes, intervene,' he repeated. There was no mistaking it--what could
be clearer. Latin, _inter_, between; _venio_, I come. Marion may have
translated it differently, but she had served in the capacity of buffer
too often to misinterpret its meaning.
'I am to understand that you wish for my aid in a love affair?' she
said.
'That's just about it. You see, I always hoped I should fall in love
with a quiet, homely, staid sort of girl, but dash it all, you can't
govern these things, can you?'
'Sometimes one has to,' said Marion, picking up dropped stitches.
'So I've completely lost my heart to a girl who--well, she's an
actress. She's second from the left in the front row chorus of
"Whizz-Bang" at the Hilarity Theatre; I tell you she's wonderful.'
'No doubt,' said Marion, bending lower over her knitting.
'Lottie's quite a good little girl, you know, but she's so
young--barely twenty--and she can't cook or sew or housekeep or do any
of those things which my mother approves. But she dances wonderfully
and kicks higher than anyone else in the chorus----'
'And you want me to make your mother appreciate the . . . the . . .
high kicks?' broke in Marion rather bitterly.
'Well, not exactly, but you know what mothers are--about the stage, I
mean. So don't you understand that if some sensible little woman like
you were to speak to her about it, she might reconstruct her views----'
He paused, staring in a puzzled way at Marion.
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