"I shan't go to Bad-as-Bad again, I know that."
"But if he comes here."
"Why, are you going to ask him?"
"He has asked himself," said her father.
"Oh!" This came as a surprise.
"But, of course," he continued, "if you mean to go on being rude to him, it wouldn't do."
"I have never been rude to him!" protested Charlotte. "I only refused to be trapped into meeting him. I shouldn't have minded if it had just been by accident; but it wasn't."
"I'm afraid it can never be by accident now," replied her father. "But you needn't be here when he arrives, or when he goes; though in between whiles, of course, you would have to meet him. And then—well, if you wanted to see more of each other—he might come again."
Charlotte showed her distaste for any temporizing of that sort. "The only difference I can see," she remarked, "is that first you were for offering me to him openly and now I'm to be a sandwich."
"You are not to be anything you don't like, my dear," said her father with gentleness. "But you know, child, we have not the whole world to choose from; being kings and queens and princesses doesn't make life a fairy tale."