"I hope you don't mind," she said; "I'm shivery."
She knelt on, watching the little flames grow into big flames, and spreading her hands to the warmth. Her face, arms, throat, and the front of her white dress became golden. She looked more like some lovely vestal of fire-worship than an ambitious American girl, determined to achieve fame in the battleground of the world.
"Why, yes," she repeated, "it has seemed strange to me. When I've thought that I wanted to do things, you always took a lot of interest and trouble, but when I knew that I wanted to do one thing, you gave me a dreadfully cold shoulder." She smiled whimsically. "I shall do an allegory in bluish-white marble--The Cold Shoulder."
She retreated a little from the fire, and sat at her father's feet. He laid his hand on her many-colored hair.
From childhood Barbara had resented parental caresses. On the present occasion, she felt a sudden tenderness for her father, and leaned a little against him, in answer to the touch of his hand.
"Did it ever," said he, "strike you as strange that you never took any interest in my career?"
"I've always been tremendously proud of you," she said. "You know that."
"You liked my results," he said, "the show pieces--newspaper notoriety--speech-making--the races in special trains against death. But you don't even know what has chiefly interested me during the last thirty years; nor the goal which I have felt I must reach before I could be resigned to parting with this life."
"No," she said gently, "I don't. Tell me. I want to be interested."
"You know, of course, that I experiment with animals."