"I can see Ross--or any man--trying to manage _you_! You've got too much of father in you." "But I'll be dependent until--" Adelaide paused, then added a satisfactorily vague, "for a long time.

Father won't give me anything.
How furious he'd be at the very suggestion of dowry.

Parents out here don't appreciate that conditions have changed and that it's necessary nowadays for a woman to be independent of her husband." Arthur compressed his lips, to help him refrain from comment.

But he felt so strongly on the subject that he couldn't let her remarks pass unchallenged.

"I don't know about that, Del," he said.