“I had nothing to add of any importance.”
“You do not think it of importance to tell us what that confining work was your father did in Australia?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea. If Mother 345 ever told me I was so very young that I have forgotten.”
“Perhaps your mother wished to spare you. If so, I do not intend to tell you at this late hour in your life. But what he did is sufficient reason for my forbidding you to carry your attentions any further.”
“Father, this is getting really ridiculous,” declared his daughter. “We love each other, and that fact is greater than all else. Not one word which you may say against Mack’s people will make the slightest difference with me.”
“My dear child, if I dared tell you one-tenth of the truth,––but I dare not.”
“You shall not talk like this any longer. It’s silly.”
“Since when has my child taken to giving her father orders? You are forcing me to speak. I’d rather cut off my right arm than do it, but I must save my little girl from–––”
“I shall not listen to another word!” broke in the girl.
“Be still! I shall speak, and you shall listen.”