“My letters!” he exclaimed. “My letters made you think—made you sure—”
“Yes; your letters and mother's. Hers were full of all sorts of things, the very things that you never mentioned. She didn't say she was having a good time here, but it was plain enough that she was. You said it in every letter—that you were having the good time, I mean—but it was perfectly plain that you weren't. And her last letter was so short—she was so busy with the Atterbury preparations that she could not write more, she said—and yours was so very, very long, and SO full of lonesomeness—”
Her father interrupted. Lonesomeness was the very thing he had tried to keep out of that letter.
“Gertrude Atwell Dott!” he shouted. “How you talk! I never wrote a word—”
“Yes, you did. It was all there, between the lines. I could read it, for you and I have been acquainted a good many years. As soon as I received that letter I made up my mind to come at once. Since I have been here I have asked a good many questions, and you have answered them. But I didn't need the answers. Just to look at you was enough. You are miserable, Daddy dear, and, because you are you, you won't admit it. But you've got to; you've got to tell me the whole story. I want to know all about everything.”
The wind was taken completely out of Daniel's sails. He could only sit there, guilt written plainly upon his face, and stammer frantic protestations.
“No, no,” he declared. “It ain't so. You're all wrong, Gertie. You're way off the course. The idea of you sayin' your mother was neglectin' me.”
“I didn't say it. You have said it a dozen times, but I haven't.”
“I said it? I never. Your mother is a fine woman, Gertie; as good a woman as ever was.”
“I know that. And she would not neglect you wilfully for the world. But she has not had experience. She takes people and things at their face value. She doesn't understand—Why are you smiling? Is it so funny?”