“My dear father, you are a sentimentalist yearning over love’s young dream. Annette knew that—instinctively. She knew that you would expect her to live on love’s young dream indefinitely, until the bloom was gone from her youth and the edge from her appetite. She knew that she could not trust you. Still less my mother. She took the law into her own hands, and I admire her for it.”
Francis walked on for some moments in silence. At the gate he said:
“I have reason to respect your opinions, Serge, but I heartily dislike them. . . . Will you come and help me in the greenhouse? I should be obliged if you will stay with me to-night until your mother is in bed and asleep. It will be so bad for her to talk.”
Mary saw her mother to bed and then came to say good-night to her father. She wore an expression of intense gloom as she pecked at his cheek. She patted his shoulder as though to tell him to be a little man and bear it.
Minna came.
“I shall be the next, pa.”
“Not another elopement, my dear.”
“No, pa. . . I want to send a piece of my wedding-cake to Annette. Will you give me away, Serge?”
“With all my heart.”