You can't utterly change people in a few hours." He gazed at her intently for a moment.
"You mean that you are trying to be fair to--her ?" "I--if you call it that;--yes! But a family can not adapt itself, instantaneously, to such a cataclysm as threatens--I mean--I mean--oh, Louis! Try to understand us and sympathise a little with us!" His arms closed around her shoulders: "Little sister, we both have the family temper--and beneath it, the family instinct for cohesion.

If we are also selfish it is not individual but family selfishness.

It is the family which has always said to the world, '_Noli me tangere_!' while we, individually, are really inclined to be kinder, more sympathetic, more curious about the neighbours outside our gate.

Let it be so now.

Once inside the family, what can harm Valerie ?" "Dearest, dearest brother," she murmured, "you talk like a foolish man.
Women understand better.