“Papa! He came to me. I was thinking of you. I had no eyes for anybody. I could no longer bear to think of you. It was then that he came. Only then. At that time when—when I was going to give up.”
She gazed into his faded blue eyes as if yearning to be understood, to be given encouragement, peace—a word of sympathy. He declared without animation “I would like to break his neck.”
She had the mental exclamation of the overburdened.
“Oh my God!” and watched him with frightened eyes. But he did not appear insane or in any other way formidable. This comforted her. The silence lasted for some little time. Then suddenly he asked:
“What’s your name then?”
For a moment in the profound trouble of the task before her she did not understand what the question meant. Then, her face faintly flushing, she whispered: “Anthony.”
Her father, a red spot on each cheek, leaned his head back wearily in the corner of the cab.
“Anthony. What is he? Where did he spring from?”
“Papa, it was in the country, on a road—”
He groaned, “On a road,” and closed his eyes.