“Well,” she said, looking laconically into his face: “It’s between you and father—”
“Of cauce!” he said. “Naturally! Where else—!” But his tone was a little spiteful, as if he had rested his last hopes on Alvina.
Alvina went away. She mentioned the coming change to Miss Pinnegar.
“Well,” said Miss Pinnegar, judicious but aloof, “it’s a move in the right direction. But I doubt if it’ll do any good.”
“Do you?” said Alvina. “Why?”
“I don’t believe in the place, and I never did,” declared Miss Pinnegar. “I don’t believe any good will come of it.”
“But why?” persisted Alvina. “What makes you feel so sure about it?”
“I don’t know. But that’s how I feel. And I have from the first. It was wrong from the first. It was wrong to begin it.”
“But why?” insisted Alvina, laughing.
“Your father had no business to be led into it. He’d no business to touch this show business. It isn’t like him. It doesn’t belong to him. He’s gone against his own nature and his own life.”