“Why not here? What’s the matter with here? I like it better than the sitting-room. I’m more comfortable.”
“No, the servants will want to clear the things away, and I don’t want them to hear what I say.”
“Tell the servants to go to hell,” said the old man, who, relieved by Gene’s departure, was becoming more cheerful.
“No, this is something—something serious. I’ll go into the sitting-room and wait for you. When you’ve finished your coffee, come in.”
She rose from her chair and walked to the door. He noticed that she was unusually unsmiling and it occurred to him that she had been so all through dinner.
“What is it, honey,” he said, extending his hand toward her, “short on your allowance?”
“Oh, no, it’s just—just something,” she said, lifting the portière. “Come when you’re ready, I’ll be there.”
She walked up the hall to the sitting-room and there sat down in a low chair before the chimneypiece. The chill of the fog had penetrated the house and a fire had been kindled in the grate. On its quivering fluctuation of flame she fixed her eyes. With her hands pressed between her knees she sat immovable, thinking of what she was going to say, and so nervous that the blood sang in her ears and the palms of her hands, clasped tight together, were damp. She had never in her life shrunk so before an allotted task. It sickened her and she was determined to do it, to thresh it out to the end. When she heard her father’s step in the passage her heart began to beat like a woman’s waiting for her lover. She straightened herself and drew an inspiration from the bottom of her lungs to try to give herself breath wherewith to speak.
The old man flung himself into an arm-chair at one side of the fireplace, jerked a small table to his elbow, reached creakingly for an ash tray, and, having made himself comfortable, took his cigar from his mouth and said,
“Well, let’s hear about this serious matter that’s making you look like a tragedy queen.”