"Oh, no, no! How small and egotistical all your ideas are! He never mentioned you, and probably never thought of you. He only took a little pains that a tired and dispirited man might see and feel the eternal beauty and freshness of nature, as one might give, in passing, a cup of water to a traveller."
"I don't see what reason you have for feeling and appearing so forlornly, thus asking for sympathy from strangers, as it were, and causing it to seem as if we were making a martyr of you. As for this artist, with his superior airs, I detest him. He never loses a chance to annoy and mortify me. I've no doubt he hoped you would come home and tell us, as you have, how much better he was than—-"
"There, there, quit that kind of talk or I'll be drunk in half an hour." said her father, harshly. "If you had the heart of a woman, let alone that of a daughter, you would thank the man who had unwittingly kept me from making a beast of myself for one day at least. Go down to your dinner, I'm in no mood for eating."
She went without a word, but with a more severe compunction of conscience than she had ever felt before in her life. Her father's face and words smote her with a keen reproach, piercing the thick armor of her vanity and selfishness. She saw, for a moment, how unnatural and unlovely she must appear to him, in spite of her beauty, and the thought crossed her mind:
"Mr. Van Berg despises me because he sees me in the same light.
How I hate his cold, critical eyes!"
Even at his far remove Van Berg could see that she was ill at ease during the dinner hour. There would be times of forced and unnatural gayety, followed by a sudden cloud upon the brow and an abstracted air, as if her thoughts had naught to do with the chattering group around her. It would also appear that her appetite was flagging unusually, and once or twice he thought she darted an angry look towards him.
As if something were burdening her mind, she at last left the table hastily, before the others were through with their dessert.
As may be surmised, she sought her father's room. Receiving no response to her knock, she entered and saw at a glance the confirmation of her fears. Her father sat in an arm-chair with his head upon his breast. A brandy bottle stood on the table beside him. At the sound of her step he looked up for a moment with heavy eyes, and mumbled:
"He ain't of your style, is he? Nor of mine, either. Froth and mud!"
Ida gave a sudden stamp of rage and disgust, and whirled from the room.