Marshall,
adding: "I don't believe we'd better talk any more about this now. You
know how we feel, and you must take that into consideration. You think
it over."
She spoke apparently with her usual calmness, but as she finished she
put her arms about the girl's neck and kissed the flushed cheeks.
Caresses from Mrs. Marshall were unusual, and, even through her tense
effort to resist, Sylvia was touched. "You're just worrying about
nothing at all, Mother," she said, trying to speak lightly, but
escaped from a possible rejoinder by hurriedly gathering up her
text-books and following Judith and Lawrence upstairs.
Her father and mother confronted each other. "_Well!_" said Professor
Marshall hotly, "of all the weak, inconclusive, modern parents--is
_this_ what we've come to?"
Mrs. Marshall took up her sewing and said in the tone which always
quelled her husband, "Yes, this is what we've come to."
His heat abated at once, though he went on combatively, "Oh, I know
what you mean, reasonable authority and not tyranny and all that--yes,
I believe in it--of course--but this goes beyond--" he ended. "Is
there or is there not such a thing as parental authority?"
Mrs. Marshall answered with apparent irrelevance, "You remember what
Cavour said?"
"Good Heaven! No, I don't remember!" cried Professor Marshall, with an
impatience which might have been Sylvia's.
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