They drove off, and when Irma found herself alone with her brother she said, in a loud voice and with a strange expression:
"Oh, father! father!" She drew a long and deep breath, as if relieved from some dread spell.
"What ails you?" said Bruno.
Irma did not care to tell him what she felt, and merely replied:
"As soon as we get back to the palace, you must write to father, or, what would be better, must go to him. Let him scold you, if it must be. He's our father, after all, and will be kind to you once more and accept what is past."
"We had better write," said Bruno.
"No!" exclaimed Irma, clasping both his hands, "you must do it, for Arabella's sake."
"For her sake?"
"Yes. I wish her to feel that there is some one whom she can address as 'father'; that would be the happiest moment she had ever known."
Bruno drew back. After a little while, he said: "Let us speak softly. You know, I suppose, that you've touched me in a tender spot. Arabella couldn't call any one father, and can't do so now. Irma, you're strong enough to look the truth in the face. What is it that forms the indissoluble bond between father and child? It is not nature alone, but history. By rejecting our rank, our father has denied father and mother and our long line of ancestors. It was he who broke the strong and glittering chain that, through him, linked us to our house. We have renewed the connection which was thus broken, but, in doing so, have become sundered from our father. He separated himself from us; in the sense in which you mean, we can neither of us say 'father.'"