Grasping the arms of her chair and almost in tears, Margaret Drake said, "It doesn’t even seem to have occurred to you that all we’re trying to do is protect you against yourself. I thought your father was wrong to take this man so seriously. I told him I thought he was simply being melodramatic when he said he knew that something like this was going to happen. I couldn’t imagine you losing your head over anyone, particularly a man you hardly know, who obviously isn’t your kind of person at all, and who can’t possibly really matter to you".
She broke off, her eyes searching Erica’s face for some sign of change and then she said hopelessly, "I don’t understand you, Eric. It isn’t as though we’d ever tried to interfere with you before, and surely you can see why we don’t want you to get involved with him for your own sake".
"But Mother, I am involved with him", said Erica steadily.
At that moment Miriam entered the dining-room. She was wearing her flowered house-coat and had a red ribbon in her dark hair. She glanced from her parents to Erica, then slipped into her chair murmuring, "Good morning, everybody".
Neither her mother nor father answered; they did not even appear to have noticed her.
"Hello, darling", said Erica mechanically.
Her father asked at last, "And what do you mean by that, exactly?"
"I don’t know, except that I can’t just stop seeing him". It was no use trying to explain to them how she felt about Marc; so far as her mother and father were concerned, you could not feel deeply about someone you had only met three times, and that was all there was to it. As her mother had already pointed out, Marc Reiser could not possibly really matter to her, and anything she might say to the contrary would simply be taken as a further proof that she had "lost her head" and was "simply not herself".
Looking aimlessly at the breakfast table in front of her, Erica said, "I realize that it’s awkward for everyone, but at least it’s nothing like as awkward now as it will be if you go on refusing to have anything to do with him…".
"In other words, you’re not interested in our opinions. We’re just to shut up and do what we’re told". He said, "Well, that’s clear enough. You’re not only deliberately walking into God knows what kind of mess, but you expect your mother and me to go along with you and back you up…".
"Not necessarily", said Miriam, helping herself to a piece of toast. "Why not just give the guy an even break and reserve judgment? Who knows? He may not turn out to be so bad after all".
"Mind your own business, Miriam!"
"Yes, please, darling", said Erica, as her self-control suddenly began to give way. The worst her father had been able to say had somehow been far easier to take than that one casual remark from Miriam.
"No", said Margaret Drake from the head of the table. "That’s not the point". She sipped some cold coffee and went on more matter-of-factly, still determined not to allow herself to break down although she was so tired and so upset, "You can’t pretend with people, Miriam. It isn’t a question of giving him an even break, it’s a question of being honest with him. It’s no use our having him here and pretending that he’s on the same basis as Erica’s other friends, as though we were actually encouraging him in fact. You can’t go just so far with people and then suddenly stop. It’s not fair".
"You sound as though I were already engaged to him", said Erica under her breath.
His face more set than ever, her father said, "You probably will be next week at this rate".
"Charles!" gasped his wife.
"We might just as well face it, Margaret". He paused and then remarked, "Mr. Reiser seems to have done pretty well up to now. Erica would hardly be making all this fuss if he hadn’t. Would you?" he asked, turning to Erica.
"No".
"And you’re going to go on seeing him, aren’t you?"
"Yes", said Erica.
There was a complete silence and then Erica said suddenly, "Charles, I want to know why".
"Why?" he repeated, looking at her. "All right, I’ll tell you why. I don’t want my daughter to go through life neither flesh, fowl, nor good red herring, living in a kind of no man’s land where half the people you know will never accept him, and half the people he knows will never accept you. I don’t want a son-in-law who’ll be an embarrassment to our friends, a son-in-law who can’t be put up at my club and who can’t go with us to places where we’ve gone all our lives. I don’t want a son-in-law whom I’ll have to apologize for, and explain, and have to hear insulted indirectly unless I can remember to warn people off first".
"In fact", said Miriam coolly, "you don’t want a son-in-law. Or not if it’s Erica who’s married to him at any rate".
"Don’t be ridiculous", said her mother. "Charles has never objected to anyone else".
"Erica has never showed any signs of wanting to marry anyone else".
Her father was paying no attention. Still looking at Erica, he observed, "If Reiser is anything like you say he is, he deserves something better than that…".
"We want you to marry someone-someone like us. Someone who’ll fit in and whom we can…" Margaret Drake caught her breath, then managed to say, "…can all be proud of", and suddenly shoving back her chair, she got up and left the room. With one final glance at Erica, Charles followed his wife out the door.
"Mother was crying", said Erica, and then began to cry herself, with her face in her hands and the tears running through her fingers.
"Have you got a handkerchief?" inquired Miriam after a while.
Erica shook her head.
"Take mine, then". She gave Erica the handkerchief across the table, bit into her piece of toast, put it down on her plate again and asked at last, "Do you remember what I said, Eric?"
"No", said Erica, blowing her nose. "What did you say?"
"I said they wouldn’t have to lock you up in your room and feed you on bread and water".
Her father never asked Erica again who was taking her out or where she was going; sometime during the day following the scene at the breakfast table, he had apparently decided to show no further interest in Marc Reiser, nor for the time being at any rate, even in Erica herself. When she came home at ten-thirty that night, having cut short her evening with Marc in order to try once more to talk to her father and work out some compromise which would make it possible for them to go on living as they had before, she found that his attitude toward her had changed completely. Instead of the anger, which she had expected, she was faced with a wall of indifference. He did not refuse to discuss the subject; he simply went on reading his paper and did not bother to listen.
To his wife and Miriam he was the same as ever, but from then on into the first week of August, whenever Erica tried speaking to him directly, no matter what she said, his expression would begin to set at the first sound of her voice, and by the time he had swung round to look at her, he had walled himself up again. Erica did not know what to do; he was treating her rather like a guest who had overstayed her welcome, and it was so unlike him and such a startling reversal of their former relationship, that in the beginning, she somehow managed to ignore it and to go on as though nothing had happened. At the end of a week, however, the most bewildering and miserable week she had had for years, her father remained as remote and as unapproachable as ever, and she gradually lost hope and stopped trying. She began to avoid him as much as she could, and hardly ever said anything to him without including either her mother or Miriam. On the evenings when both of them were out, Erica either stayed out herself or went to bed almost immediately after dinner, in order not to be left alone with him.