“Young Delavan surprised me very much just now,” he began. “I told him, as I suppose he reported to you, that he had my consent to win you if he could. I don’t suppose, though, that he also told you I didn’t believe he could and that it would grieve me deeply to see you marry him.”
Rhoda bent upon him surprised eyes. “Why, father, what do you mean? Don’t you like him?”
“Yes, Rhoda, I like him well enough, personally, but you know how I feel about slavery and all who are responsible for it. Have you forgotten that Jefferson Delavan is a slaveholder?”
The color faded from her face, and into her wide, gray eyes, fastened upon his, there came a look, as of some wild thing suddenly stricken, that smote his heart. She flinched a little and he turned away, that he might not see her pain.
“I guess, daughter, you hadn’t thought about that,” he went on, kindly.
“No,” she repeated after him, “I—I hadn’t thought about that.”
“But you knew that he has slaves, that he works his plantation with slave labor?”
“Yes, father, I knew it, somewhere back in my mind, but I didn’t think anything about it. I didn’t think of anything but—just him!”
“But you’ll have to think about it now,” he said in a gently suggestive tone.
“Yes,” she assented dully, “I’ll have to think about it now”—she stopped, then went on with a flash of pain in her tone, “when I can think!”