But a familiar trilling call that came up to him stirred that unpleasant thing in his mind. When Barrett walked to the window and signalled to her that he had heard and would come, his expression was not exactly that of the fond father who welcomes his only child. It was not the expression that the bright face peering from under the phaeton’s parasol invited. And as he wore his look of uneasiness and discontent when he took his seat beside her, her face became grave also.
“Is it the business or the politics, father?” she asked, solicitously. “I’m jealous of both if they take away the smiles and bring the tired lines. If it’s business, let’s make believe we’ve got money enough. Haven’t we—for only us two? If it’s politics—well, when I’m a governor’s daughter I’ll be only an unhappy slave to the women, and you a servant of the men.”
But he did not respond to her rallying.
“I can’t get away from work this summer, Elva,” he said, with something of the curtness of his business tone. “I mean I can’t get away to go with you.”
“But I don’t want you to go anywhere, father,” protested the girl.
She was so earnest that he glanced sidewise at her. His air was that of one who is trying a subtle test.
“I feel that I must go north for a visit to my timber lands,” he went on; “I have not been over them for years. I’ve had pretty good proof that I am being robbed by men I trusted. I propose to go up there and make a few wholesome examples.”
He was accustomed to talk his business affairs with her. She always received them with a grave understanding that pleased him. Her dark eyes now met him frankly and interestedly. Looking at her as he did, with his strange thrill of suspicion that another man wanted her and that she loved the man, he saw that his daughter was beautiful, with the brilliancy of type that transcends prettiness. He realized that she had the wit and spirit which make beauty potent, and her eyes and bearing showed poise and self-reliance. Such was John Barrett’s appraisal, and John Barrett’s business was to appraise humankind. But perhaps he did not fully realize that she was a woman with a woman’s heart.
The pony was ambling along lazily under the elms, and the reflective lord of lands was silent awhile, glancing at his daughter occasionally from the corner of his eye. He noted, with fresh interest, that she had greeting for all she met—as gracious a word for the tattered man from the mill as for the youth who slowed his automobile to speak to her.
“These gossips have misunderstood her graciousness,” he mused, the thought giving him comfort.