“Well, dearie,” he said, trying to speak cheerfully—“that sounds a big undertaking; sort of thing you don’t settle up all in a minute. You couldn’t go alone and Rosamund couldn’t go with you.”
“I know all that. I’ve thought it all out. I haven’t slept well lately and I arranged it when I was awake at night. I could take some one with me, a sort of companion person. And then when Rosamund got married and came over there with Lionel, why, then I could stay with them. Perhaps I could live with them for a while. He has such a big house.”
She paused, evidently waiting to see how the Colonel would take her suggestions.
“That’s all possible enough,” he said,—“but—well, there’s your father. How about him?”
“Oh, my father!” the note of scorn in her voice was supplemented by a side look at him which showed she had no further illusions as to her father. “My father can get on very well without me.”
Even if she had come to know Allen at his just worth, the hardness of her tone hurt the Colonel. It showed him how deep had been the change in her in the last three years.
“It’s hard on him just the same,” he said, “to lose his two daughters at once.”
“Parents have to lose their children,” she answered in the same tone. “Suppose I’d married a foreigner like Rosamund?”
The Colonel did not answer. Suddenly she laid the hand near him on his.
“There’s only you and Rosamund,” she said. “And now Rosamund’s going too.”