"Never!"
"Then how can you ask me to?"
"I didn't mean forget her, exactly. I meant not come here and do things that will make every one unhappy."
"One minute, Chick-a-Biddy," said Laddie. Sometimes he called me that, when he loved me the very most of all. I don't believe any one except me ever heard him do it. "Let me ask you this: does our father love our mother?"
"Love her?" I cried. "Why he just loves her to death! He turns so white, and he suffers so, when her pain is the worst. Love her? And she him? Why, don't you remember the other day when he tipped her head against him and kissed her throat as he left the table; that he asked her if she 'loved him yet,' and she said right before all of us, 'Why Paul, I love you, until I scarcely can keep my fingers off you!' Laddie, is it like that with you and the Princess?"
"It is with me," said Laddie. "Not with the Princess! Now, can I forget her? Can I keep away from even the chance to pass her on the road?"
"No," I said. "No, you can't, Laddie. But can you ever make her love you?"
"It takes time to find that out," said Laddie. "I have got to try; so you be a woman and keep my secret a little while longer, until I find a way out, but don't bother your head about it!"
"I can't help bothering my head, Laddie. Can't you make her understand that God is not a myth?"
"I'm none too sure what I believe myself," said Laddie. "Not that there is no God—I don't mean that—but I surely don't believe all father's teachings."