"It's a hard life," he whispered.
"No harder for me than for other girls," she answered.
"You might fail—you might, you know?"
"Even so," responded Sybil, "it would be more brave, more honorable to try and fail than not to try at all, but be content to cling like a parasitical growth to you and mamma, stealing from your vitality!"
He turned his pale face to her, and said: "There speaks my father, through your lips. The courage, the spirit, that passed by me reappears in you, a girl!" Again he turned away, and silence fell. She had reasoned, argued, entreated. Had it all been in vain? she asked herself. At last she faltered: "Dada, are you going to refuse your consent? Shall you forbid me?"
He turned upon her in a white passion of misery: "Refuse you? Forbid you? What right have I to forbid anything? Fathers who bring honor to the family name, who support, shelter, and protect their children, have earned the right to guide them—to forbid them for their good! But what right have I? My father gave me a fortune—I was too weak to hold it! God gave me daughters, and I am too weak to protect them!" His head fell upon his breast, he extended his trembling old hands to her, and abjectly murmured: "Pardon me, my daughter! pardon me!"
In an instant his shamed old face was resting above the high-beating young heart of his child. She smoothed back the silvery hair from his lined brow, and said, imperatively: "Dada, answer me this one question, and we will have done. Answer truly! Do you believe there is a father, great, strong, rich, influential, in this city to-night who is more truly, reverently loved than you are? Tell me!"
And the old man answered: "No! no! Though I have lost everything else in the world, my children's love remains to me. That is the one sweet drop left in the bottom of the cup! It is compensation, daughter, it is compensation!"
Sybil rested her cheek upon his head, and crooned over him as though he were a sick child, until the young summer night lifted her mighty silver shield high above the grewsome black trees, then a peevish voice from above called: "Sybil! John! What are you mooning over down there? Why on earth don't you come in out of the damp? The quinine bottle's more than half empty now! No one ever seems to consider ways and means in this house unless I do! And John, this room's full of all sorts of flopping, flying things! They've put the candle out twice, and you ought to come up here and try and chase 'em away! Besides, I—I don't want you two down there, anyway!"
John answered, obediently, "Yes, Letitia!" But Sybil laughed a short laugh, and said: "The wasp carries his sting in his tail, and the pith of mamma's remarks are generally found at their end. No, she doesn't want us two down here anyway! Papa, I knew mamma was jealous of me when I was only as high as your knee, and——"