Alice was getting angry with me.
“You prefer an interesting woman to a good one,” she said, warmly.
“Without going quite so far as that, I certainly think that it is unfortunate that most of the good women whom one meets are so uninteresting,” I answered. “Goodness seems so satisfying—in the case of repletion. I mean—it doesn’t seem to leave room for anything else.”
Whereupon Alice left me in despair, and I found myself face to face with my father. He looked at me in stern disapproval. There was a distinctly marked frown on his forehead.
“You are too fond of those flighty sayings, Kate,” he remarked, sternly. “Let me hear less of them.”
I made no reply. There were times when I was almost afraid of my father, when a suppressed irritation of manner seemed like the thin veneer beneath which a volcano was trembling. To-day the signs were there. I made haste to change the subject.
“The letters have just come,” I said, holding out a little packet to him. “There is one for you from a place I never heard of—somewhere in South America, I think.”
He took them from me and glanced at the handwriting of the topmost one. Then for a short space of time I saw another man before me. The calm strength of his refined, thoughtful face was transformed. Like a flash the gleam of a dark passion lit up his brilliant eyes. His lips quivered, his fingers were clenched together. For a moment I thought he would have torn the letter into shreds unopened. With an evident effort, however, he restrained himself, and went out of the room bearing the letter in his hand.
I heard him walking about in his study all the morning. At luncheon time he had quite recovered his composure, but towards its close he made, for us, a somewhat startling announcement.