"It's a very usual sentiment, I believe, among young people," he went on, in the same calm voice. "It's a ferment natural to their time of life—not very serious, any more than first love or measles."
Val grew stiffer and more dignified with each word he uttered.
"Anybody would think from what you say, father"—she was holding herself down with difficulty—"that people all gave up music when they arrived at years of discretion. There is such a person as Patti after all, and there may be somebody somewhere better than Patti, just"—her voice began to shake—"just waiting for a little help."
"Ah, better than Patti!"
He smiled. The look of tender amusement fell like a lash upon the spirit of his child.
"Oh yes, it's all very well to laugh, father. You don't care. Nothing matters any more to you. I dare say, even when you were young, you didn't know what it was like to feel that you'd be chopped up into little fine pieces rather than go on in the old dull way that most people do."
A quick, dim look, like the ghost of an ancient pain, flitted over the worn face of the man; but he walked on, saying nothing.
"You don't know what it's like to look over there for years and years"—she flung out a hand to the horizon—"and say to yourself, day in and day out, 'Beyond that blue line is the world! Oh, when shall I be seeing the world?'" She stopped, and so did her father, turning now to look at the excited face. "Some people never do," she said, with a kind of incredulous horror. "I can't sleep sometimes for thinking of how, here in New Plymouth, there are all these people, with all their senses (so far as you can see), and arms, and legs, and money, and yet here they sit, just where they happened to be dumped—sit and wait till they die! Oh, it's like a nightmare, thinking of them! I feel if I don't run away quick while I'm awake and able to move, I shall freeze fast in my hole, too, and never be able to reach all the beautiful things that are waiting—out there!" She nodded over to the encircling hills. "Think of it!" and the bright tears tumbled out of her shining eyes.
"I don't want my little girl to miss any good thing," he said, presently, as they were nearing the town.
"Then help me, father. Be kind to me."