"Father!" she interrupted quickly. "Don't ask me to say I won't run away. I couldn't keep such a promise."
"That was not what I was going to suggest," he answered, completing a sudden mental readjustment. "I have nothing more to say against your plan, only I think it must be rather dull to run away alone. Suppose we run away together?"
"Together, father?"
"Yes; I—I think I'm on the track of a valuable discovery, and I must follow it up."
"Oh—what?"
"Well, you needn't speak of it to—a—to any one, just yet."
"No, no, father." She was strung up to the great romantic revelation.
"Well, I believe—indeed, I am sure—that all the hot gas and blinding electric light in use in most houses are very injurious to eyesight."
She stopped and stared at him. Was he going mad? Had she heard aright? The great romantic revelation that wasn't to be spoken of to any one—