Her knowledge of his personal difficulties had taught her a glorious admiration that now changed to a quite tender pity; and the thought of having added to them brought up self-hate that tortured her almost intolerably.
Yet, although it would be seemingly simple enough now to double back on her course and assure him of her trust, she realized how strangely paralyzed her will power had become. One emotion will lead to definite action. But she was now possessed of a dozen sharp emotions that baffled her and rendered her uniquely powerless to act. As she drove on very slowly, unconscious of time, there occurred a gradual balancing and checking off of these various feelings, until, at length, she knew only that, by her own words and attitude, she had killed love in the man she reverenced, and that he was now suffering. Finally, when she turned about and drove homeward, her mind had clarified her feelings until nothing remained but a wild regret. Half stupefied she entered her father’s gateway and ran the car into the garage.
When she walked into the house, she found her father sitting in the library, reading.
“Where’s Mother?” she asked.
“She’s over at Beecher’s,” he replied. “Why?”
“Oh, nothing.”
She stood in the library door, stupidly looking at him huddled behind his newspaper. The house was very quiet. He was engrossed with the journal. She heard the ticking of a clock in a bedroom upstairs. Her father sat with one foot crossed over the other in such a way that his trouser leg was pulled to reveal his grey sock. She noticed that the design on the sock, woven there with black thread, was broken and that some of the threads were standing at loose ends.
Suddenly the rattle of the newspaper startled her. “What’s wrong?” he asked, glancing up.
“Nothing, Dad,” she said, turning towards the hallway.
“Did you want your mother?”