“I made love to old Nicolls, the florist, to let me gather these myself; he was very anxious to make a gorgeous arrangement done up in white paper with a lace edge, and thought me a fearful Goth for preferring this disorderly bunch.”
They sat down to breakfast; afterward the morning papers came in, and Raeburn disappeared behind the “Daily Review,” while the servant cleared the table. Erica stood by the open French window; she knew that in a few minutes she must speak, and how to get what she had to say into words she did not know. Her heart beat so fast that she felt almost choked. In a sort of dream of pain she watched the passers-by happy looking girls going down to bathe, children with spades and pails. Everything seemed so tranquil, so ordinary while before her lay a duty which must change her whole world.
“Not much news,” said Raeburn, coming toward her as the servant left the room. “For dullness commend me to a Monday paper! Well, Eric, how are we to spend your twenty-third birthday? To think that I have actually a child of twenty-three! Why, I ought to feel an old patriarch, and, in spite of white hair and life-long badgering, I don't, you know. Come, what shall we do. Where would you like to go?”
“Father,” said Erica, “I want first to have a talk with you. I—I have something to tell you.”
There was no longer any mistaking that the seriousness meant some kind of trouble. Raeburn put his arm round her.
“Why, my little girl,” he said, tenderly. “You are trembling all over. What is the matter?”
“The matter is that what I have to say will pain you, and it half kills me to do that. But there is no choice tell you I must. You would not wish me not to be true, not to be honest.”
Utter perplexity filled Raeburn's mind. What phantom trouble was threatening him? Had she been commissioned to tell him of some untoward event? Some business calamity? Had she fallen in love with some one he could not permit her to marry? He looked questioningly at her, but her expression only perplexed him still more; she was trembling no longer, and her eyes were clear and bright, there was a strong look about her whole face.
“Father,” she said, quietly, “I have learned to believe in Jesus Christ.”
He wrenched away his arm; he started back from her as if she had stabbed him. For a minute he looked perfectly dazed.