“No, no, not to lose you, my darling, but for you to go away with the man you love and who loves you. I hate him for taking you, but he is a splendid fellow, Myra. What a sailor he would have made!”
“Yes, father.”
“If they had not spoiled him by getting all that natural history stuff in his head. But I say, my darling,” he continued as he held his child at arm’s length, admiring her, but pushing up his hand.
“Yes, dear?”
“Isn’t this a little too—too punctilious? Very lovely, dear; you look all that a man could wish for, but it’s a wedding, my pet, and you—you do not quite look like a bride.”
“What do the looks matter?” she said with a dreamy look in her large eyes.
“Well, I don’t know. Woman ought to please her husband, and isn’t it a mistake to dress—well, to parade that nonsense about your being a widow.”
“Nonsense, dear?” said Myra, smiling sadly. “It was no nonsense. Whatever that man may have been I swore at the altar to be his faithful wife.”
“Till death did you part, eh? Yes, yes, yes,” said the admiral testily, “but he’s dead and gone and forgotten; there is no need to dig him up again.”
“Papa!”