It was evident that Gale’s fond pride in his daughter grew with every sentence.
“She’d deceive anybody in the world, except her old Daddy,” he persisted. “Get your pictures, Johnnie, and let Mr. Chase see them.”
I hastened to assure Miss Gale that I should consider it a privilege to look at her work, and she rose, leaving me with her father, whose eyes followed her proudly. For myself, I was in a decidedly miscellaneous condition, mentally. I could not permit myself even to hope that Gale really intended to undertake the expedition I had proposed. Yet there had been something about it all that suggested a sincere interest in my plans, in spite of the fact of his rather boisterous and perhaps undue tendency to levity. It seemed to me that his daughter, and his old-time associate, Sturritt, had taken him seriously, and they must know his moods better than I. At most I would not allow myself to do more than hope. I had waited so long—I could restrain the frenzy of joy in me a little longer. One thing was assured. I was to sit at luncheon with Edith Gale, and even should there be no voyage to the South, I might hope to see her again, when from time to time I could make the excuse of coming to her father with new sources of amusement. I reflected that I would invent the most absurd propositions that human ingenuity could devise, for Chauncey Gale to play with, if he only would let his daughter take part in the merry pastime.
Gale, meantime, had turned to me, and was about to speak when Miss Gale entered. She was accompanied by a stout, resolute-looking colored woman, bearing a large portfolio.
“Put it right down on the rug, Zar, against the chair, so.”
Miss Gale herself adjusted the heavy book, then seated herself comfortably on the floor beside it. The servant withdrew. Gale slid over to a low stool, and, half unconsciously, I slipped from my chair to a position on the floor between them. We were like a group of children around a toy book.
The cover of the portfolio was turned back and the first picture, a bit of landscape in water color, was shown. I had no great technical knowledge of art, but I could see at a glance that Miss Gale’s work was of unusual quality. The admiration, at first expressed in words, soon became the silence of unquestioned tribute. Yet I was not surprised that Edith Gale should do this masterly work. What did surprise me was the genuine appreciation of her father, as shown by his occasional comment. Evidently the daughter’s ability had not been wholly due to the dead mother. At the end of the portfolio there was a series of illustrations for an old Yorkshire ballad.
“Daddy and I always sing this when folks will let us,” announced Miss Gale, with an affected diffidence that made her all the more beautiful, I thought.
“You can’t get away now till after lunch, Chase,” said Gale; “you’ve got to stand it.”
Edith Gale had set the first of the series up before us, and sang the opening lines of the ballad in a voice that might have come from the middle strings of a harp. Then, at the refrain, there joined in a deep, rich resonance that I could hardly realize proceeded from her father. I came in at the end of the second stanza—feebly at first, but gaining in courage until I sang with volume enough to have spoiled everything had I not been more fortunate than usual and kept to the right key.