"There's me." She was kneeling by the growing fire, and she could only see her father's back, but its stillness and his silence were a punishment for all the kindnesses she had left undone, and for an instant she knew how she would feel when he lay dead. Gripping the fender, she dropped her head to her knees. "And there's Alexander," she said, in a voice muffled against her dress.
There was a pause. "Yes, there's Alexander."
"Did you have a happy time," she stopped, and deliberately she used Alexander's words, "up yonder."
"Very. Very. He was like himself again. And, I hope you won't mind, Theresa, he wants to come here for his Easter holiday. I didn't ask him—I wouldn't do that without your consent. He asked himself. I could only make one answer, could I, my dear?"
"No. No. I don't mind at all. Why should I?"
He turned in his chair. "You seemed to have such an extraordinary dislike for him, my child."
On her knees she crossed the narrow space between them, and leaned her head against his arm.
"I've always hated to hear other people praised, and that was the way you began about him, fourteen years ago. Fourteen years! And you've been praising him ever since. But I'm trying to be more sensible. At least, I'm different. At least, I think I am! Oh—I don't know! Anyhow, I don't mind his coming a bit, a bit! He can live here if he likes!" She sank to a sitting posture, and she beat the ground softly, hurriedly, with her fists.
"He won't want to do that," Edward Webb said unnecessarily. "He seems wedded to his life there."
"I thought he was in love." Her voice scorned the state in him.