Chapter XXIV
Following the interview with his father, subsequent to Caleb Brent's funeral, Donald McKaye realized full well that his love-affair, hitherto indefinite as to outcome, had crystallized into a definite issue. For him, there could be no evasion or equivocation; he had to choose, promptly and for all time, between his family and Nan Brent--between respectability, honor, wealth, and approbation on one hand, and pity, contempt, censure, and poverty on the other. Confronting this impasse, he was too racked with torment to face his people that night and run the gantlet of his mother's sad, reproachful glances, his father's silence, so eloquent of mental distress, and the studied scorn, amazement, and contempt in the very attitudes of his selfish and convention-bound sisters. So he ate his dinner
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