“That's it; tell me I spoil everything. Well, I won't interfere from now on, you can be sure of it.”
“Please don't talk like that,” Alice said, quickly. “I'm old enough to realize that papa may need pressure of all sorts; I only think it makes him more obstinate to get him cross. You probably do understand him better, but that's one thing I've found out and you haven't. There!” She gave her mother a friendly tap on the shoulder and went to the door. “I'll hop in and say hello to him now.”
As she went, she continued the fastening of her blouse, and appeared in her father's room with one hand still thus engaged, but she patted his forehead with the other.
“Poor old papa-daddy!” she said, gaily. “Every time he's better somebody talks him into getting so mad he has a relapse. It's a shame!”
Her father's eyes, beneath their melancholy brows, looked up at her wistfully. “I suppose you heard your mother going for me,” he said.
“I heard you going for her, too!” Alice laughed. “What was it all about?”
“Oh, the same danged old story!”
“You mean she wants you to try something new when you get well?” Alice asked, with cheerful innocence. “So we could all have a lot more money?”
At this his sorrowful forehead was more sorrowful than ever. The deep horizontal lines moved upward to a pattern of suffering so familiar to his daughter that it meant nothing to her; but he spoke quietly. “Yes; so we wouldn't have any money at all, most likely.”
“Oh, no!” she laughed, and, finishing with her blouse, patted his cheeks with both hands. “Just think how many grand openings there must be for a man that knows as much as you do! I always did believe you could get rich if you only cared to, papa.”