“I certainly should.”
“Of course you would. So I took no chances but just came instead.”
“But why did you come?”
“Why? To see you, of course.”
“Oh, Crawford, please don't joke. You know I asked you not to come here. When we last spoke together, over the telephone, I told you that if you came here I should not see you. And yet you came.”
His manner changed. He was serious enough now.
“I came,” he said, “because—well, because I felt that I must. I had many things to tell you, Mary, and something to ask. And I could neither tell nor ask in a letter. Dad and I have quarreled—we've parted company.”
She had expected to hear it, but it shocked and grieved her, nevertheless. She knew how he had loved his father.
“Sit down, Crawford,” she said gently. “Sit down and tell me all about it.”
He told her. There was little more to tell than he had written. His father had not become more reconciled to the idea of his marrying Mary. Instead his opposition was just as violent and, to his son's mind, as unreasonably absurd. Day after day Crawford waited, hoping that time would bring a change or that his own arguments might have an effect, but neither time nor argument softened Edwin Smith's obstinacy.