“When I was a boy,” went on the other. “I was always kept hard up by my father. It was like pulling gum teeth to get the price of a fishing rod out of him. When I think of all the fun I might have bought with a few dollars, it makes me wild. You can’t buy fun when you get old; you may buy an opera house or a yacht, but you can’t buy the real stuff that makes life worth living.”
Phyl glanced out of the window at the park, then as though she had found some inspiration there, she turned to Pinckney.
“If you don’t mind about the money, then why don’t you let me live here instead of letting the place? I can live here by myself and I would be happy here. I won’t be happy if I leave it.”
“Well,” said Pinckney, “there’s your father’s wish, first of all.”
“I’m sure if he knew how I felt, he wouldn’t mind,” said Phyl mournfully, turning her gaze again to the park.
“On top of that,” went on Pinckney, “there’s—your age. Phyl, it wouldn’t ever do; it’s not I that am saying it, it’s custom, the world, society.”
Phyl, like the hooked salmon that has taken the gaudy fly, felt a check and recognised that a Power had her in hand, recognised in the light-going and fair-speaking Pinckney something of adamant, a will not to be broken or bent.
She felt for a moment a revolt against herself for having fallen to the lure and allowed herself to come to friendly terms with him. Then this feeling faded a bit. The very young are very weak in the face of constituted authority—besides, there was always at the back of Pinckney her father’s wish.
“And then again, on top of that,” he went on, “there’s the question of your coming to live with us; your father wished it.”
“In America!” cried Phyl. “Do you mean I am to live in America?”