Mirah's anxiety was quick enough to imagine her father's sinking into a further degradation, which she was bound to hinder if she could. But before she could answer his string of inventive sentences, delivered with as much glibness as if they had been learned by rote, he added promptly,

Mirah anxiously imagined her father's sinking into further degradation, which she was bound to prevent if she could. Before she could answer, he said,
