"No, father, no," Ben would whimper.
"Then you must control yourself. If ever you lose a grip upon yourself in temper or anything else, it will be like that."
But the music even at such times never frightened her, though it sounded very savage, like the wind through the trees in a thunder storm.
The only time that he had ever seemed the slightest bit angry at her was once during that wonderful summer when he had taken them abroad. She was seventeen, and on the boat she met a man with whom she fell in love. He was very much older than she, and possessed a glorious mustache which turned up at the corners. He helped her up and down the deck one day when the wind was blowing, and that night she lay awake thinking about him. When she appeared in the morning with her eyes heavy and her thoughts far away, the father put his arm about her and escorted her to the stern of the boat. Then sitting down beside her, he said,
"Tell me what is on your mind, little girl."
She told him quite simply, and had been surprised to see his face grow white and terrible.
"He put those thoughts into your heart?"
He rose to his feet and started towards the saloon. She knew what he was about to do. She flung her arms around his knees and, sobbing, pleaded with him until he stayed. Then after she had calmed a little, he talked to her and she listened as though to a stranger.
"Little girl," he cried fiercely, "there is much that you do not understand, and much that I pray God you never will understand. One of these things is the nature of man. If it were not for all the other fair things there are in life I would place you in a convent, for the best man who ever lived, little girl, is not good enough to take into his keeping the worst woman. They break their hearts with their weaknesses—they break their hearts."
"But you, dear Dada—"