"Well, why not? Why shouldn't they?" he asked then, almost crossly, and hitching again in his chair. "Aren't books down there—in Boston—kept where they belong, pray?"
It was the first time since I'd come that he'd ever mentioned Boston; and I almost jumped out of my chair when I heard him. But I soon saw it wasn't going to be the last, for right then and there he began to question me, even worse than Aunt Jane had.
He wanted to know everything, everything; all about the house, with its cushions and cozy corners and curtains 'way up, and books left around easy to get, and magazines, and Baby Lester, and the fun we had romping with him, and everything. Only, of course, I didn't mention Mother. Aunt Jane had told me not to—not anywhere; and to be specially careful before Father. But what can you do when he asks you himself, right out plain? And that's what he did.
He'd been up on his feet, tramping up and down the room all the time I'd been talking; and now, all of a sudden, he wheels around and stops short.
"How is—your mother, Mary?" he asks. And it was just as if he'd opened the door to another room, he had such a whole lot of questions to ask after that. And when he'd finished he knew everything: what time we got up and went to bed, and what we did all day, and the parties and dinners and auto rides, and the folks that came such a lot to see Mother.
Then all of a sudden he stopped—asking questions, I mean. He stopped just as suddenly as he'd begun. Why, I was right in the middle of telling about a concert for charity we got up just before I came away, and how Mother had practiced for days and days with the young man who played the violin, when all of a sudden Father jerked his watch from his pocket and said:
"There, there, Mary, it's getting late. You've talked enough—too much. Now go to bed. Good-night."
Talked too much, indeed! And who'd been making me do all the talking, I should like to know? But, of course, I couldn't say anything. That's the unfair part of it. Old folks can say anything, anything they want to to you, but you can't say a thing back to them—not a thing.
And so I went to bed. And the next day all that Father said to me was, "Good-morning, Mary," and, "Good-night," just as he had ever since I came. And that's all he's said yesterday and to-day. But he's looked at me. He's looked at me a lot. I know, because at mealtimes and others, when he's been in the room with me, I've looked up and found his eyes on me. Funny, isn't it?
* * * * *