"My father!" Linda faced him now, and sparks were flying from the brown eyes. "Bertram King, I adore my father!"
"Yes, I know,—when you have time."
"What—what is it? Would you have had me not go to college?"
"No,"—King spoke in a reasonable tone,—"you did right to go to college."
"Thank you—a thousand times." The crisp waves of the speaker's hair seemed to snap as on a cold night while she bowed her thanks.
King played with his glasses; and she turned quickly back to the window in order that he should not see that sudden tears quenched the fire in her eyes. Her father's preoccupied face rose before her. Was it true that she had ever neglected him? A habit of sighing unconsciously had recently grown upon him. She had noticed that, and also that in late months new lines of harassment had come in his face. Never mind, she was going to run away with him, devote herself to him, far from this man who dared to comment, and to pick flaws in her behavior. He should never see her change.
"I did want to do some riding with you, Linda. The idea comes to me like a picture or a poem when I think of those forests:—
'—here and there in solemn lines
The dark pilasters of the pines
Bore up the high woods' somber dome;
Between their shafts, like tapestry flung,
A soft blue vapor fell and hung.'
Nice, isn't it?"
"On what bond issue did you find that?" inquired Linda, tapping the window pane with restless fingers, and watching impatiently for her laggard cavalier.