“My own impulsive, overgrateful Margot! As if it had not been also all my life, my happiness. Well, since I cannot go, you must write to him. For me and for yourself. Explaining why I cannot come, just yet, but that I will as soon as may be. Make it a letter such as you have talked just now and it will be better to his hungry heart than even a sight of his old friend and brother.”
“I will write as many letters for you as you please, but—I will deliver them in person.”
He did not get the full import of her words, at first, but when he did he frowned. It hurt him beyond expression that she should jest on such a subject, even for the laudable purpose of cheering himself.
Then he felt her cool hand on his wrist.
“Uncle, I mean it. I have thought it over and over. I have thought of nothing else, except that you were getting better, and I know I am right. I am going to see my father. I am going to get my father. I shall never come back without him. But I shall certainly come, and he with me. You cannot go. I can, I want to, beyond telling. I must.”
A thousand objections flashed through his mind and the struggle to comprehend just what were and were not valid ones wearied him. For some time neither of them spoke again, but clasped hands until he fell into a sudden sleep. Even then Margot did not release her hold, though her cramped position numbed her arm, and her impatience to make him see matters from her point of view was hard to control. But he awoke almost as suddenly as he had dozed, and with a clear idea of her meaning. After all, how simple it was! and what an infinite relief to his anxiety.
“Tell me what you think.”
“This: My father must not be disappointed. Your visit, the one link that connects him with his old life and happiness, is impossible. Each year you have taken him reports of me and how I grew. I’m going to show him whether you represented me as I am or as your partial eyes behold me. More than that, I must go. I must see him. I must put my arms about his neck and tell him that I love him, as my mother loved him, with all his child’s affection added. I must. It is my right.”
“But—how. You’ve never been beyond the forest. You are so young and ignorant of—everything.”