"Phyllis, you don't mean that your engagement--"
"Hush, Papa, we can't talk here.--Come upstairs to your den."
There she heaped up a dozen pillows on the divan; settled herself with Watch's head on her lap, and Wally and Teddy beside her; asked if there were any chocolate creams, and resigned herself to there being none; and then, pushing back the soft, thick hair from her eyes, told her father to sit at her feet, and not to crowd a valuable dog.
"Yes, all that's finished," she said. "It was splendid and international, and all that, but I could not stand it any more. He was just like poor Whitlock, only worse. I don't know how to describe it, Papa, for he was awfully correct and all that--I wouldn't for worlds have you think he wasn't--only he expected all the conventional things that go with being engaged, and wanted me to nestle against his waistcoat, and, and--pant with joy I suppose--and whisper what a beautiful, wonderful, irresistible, bubble-bubble-bubble person he was--and shyly kiss his hand, probably--Oh, well, Papa, I tried to, and I didn't like it, and in spite of myself it seemed wrong and humiliating--and he was so large, and pink, and German, and so much of him rolled over his collar, and everybody seemed in such a conspiracy to poke us into dark corners and leave us there, and so finally I just said, 'No, I've made a mistake, and here's your ring, and here's the cablegram from the Kaiser, and here's the photograph of your dead mother--and would you mind getting out of my life, please?--and friends are requested to accept this the only intimation.'"
"And how did he take it?"
"He wouldn't take it--that was the trouble. He made a frightful fuss. He couldn't have made more if we had been really married, and I had announced my intention of running away with the elevator-boy! He scrunched my hands till I thought the bones would break, and might have thrown me out of the window if tea hadn't come in the nick of time. Then he went off to Aunt Sarah, with the German idea of stinging up the family--as though twenty aunts could make me love a man I didn't--and succeeded so well that she practically drove me out. Oh, her position! I never heard the end of it--and of course she said I had ruined it, and that she never could hold up her head again. The only thing to do was to run. So I ran and ran and ran--to my old dad!"
She slipped her hand down, and held her father's collar as though he, too, were a dog, and gave it an affectionate little tug.
"My darling old dad," she murmured.
"It's not so bad to have one, is it?" he said. "To know where there is a snug harbor, and an old fellow who thinks you are perfect, and everything you do is right. You will get a lot of criticism for this, and I suppose Washington will boil over--but to my thinking, you couldn't have done better, and I am thankful for your courage. If you don't love a man, for God's sake, don't marry him, even if you're both walking up the aisle, and he's twiddling the ring!--To tell the truth, I wasn't a bit partial to Von Piller, and found it pretty hard to sit tight, and be told he was forty different kinds of a paragon."
"My darling Papa," she observed sweetly, "you're never going to like anybody who wants to marry me, and it's sure to cost me some worry when the right person does come.--Do you suppose he ever will?"