"Mary!" he gasped. "What in the world are you talking about?"
"Why, Father, I was telling you," I explained. And I tried to be so cool and calm that it would make him calm and cool, too. (But it didn't calm him or cool him one bit.) "It's about when you're married, and—"
"Married!" he interrupted again. (They never let me interrupt like that!)
"To Cousin Grace—yes. But, Father, you—you are going to marry Cousin Grace, aren't you?" I cried—and I did 'most cry, for I saw by his face that he was not.
"That is not my present intention," he said. His lips came together hard, and he looked over his shoulder to see if Cousin Grace was coming back.
"But you're going to sometime," I begged him.
"I do not expect to." Again he looked over his shoulder to see if she was coming. I looked, too, and we both saw through the window that she had gone into the library and lighted up and was sitting at the table reading.
I fell back in my chair, and I know I looked grieved and hurt and disappointed, as I almost sobbed:
"Oh, Father, and when I thought you were going to!"
"There, there, child!" He spoke, stern and almost cross now. "This absurd, nonsensical idea has gone quite far enough. Let us think no more about it."