CRAMPTON. I missed that advantage to-day, I think.
WAITER. You did, sir, you did. Dear me! It's the unexpected that always happens, isn't it? (Shaking his head.) You never can tell, sir: you never can tell. (He goes into the hotel.)
CRAMPTON (his eyes shining hardly as he props his drawn, miserable face on his hands). Home! Home!! (He drops his arms on the table and bows his head on them, but presently hears someone approaching and hastily sits bolt upright. It is Gloria, who has come up the steps alone, with her sunshade and her book in her hands. He looks defiantly at her, with the brutal obstinacy of his mouth and the wistfulness of his eyes contradicting each other pathetically. She comes to the corner of the garden seat and stands with her back to it, leaning against the end of it, and looking down at him as if wondering at his weakness: too curious about him to be cold, but supremely indifferent to their kinship.) Well?
GLORIA. I want to speak with you for a moment.
CRAMPTON (looking steadily at her). Indeed? That's surprising. You meet your father after eighteen years; and you actually want to speak to him for a moment! That's touching: isn't it? (He rests his head on his hands, and looks down and away from her, in gloomy reflection.)
GLORIA. All that is what seems to me so nonsensical, so uncalled for. What do you expect us to feel for you—to do for you? What is it you want? Why are you less civil to us than other people are? You are evidently not very fond of us—why should you be? But surely we can meet without quarrelling.
CRAMPTON (a dreadful grey shade passing over his face). Do you realize that I am your father?
GLORIA. Perfectly.
CRAMPTON. Do you know what is due to me as your father?
GLORIA. For instance—-?