Her new name was so unfamiliar that she hesitated before answering: "Come in."
"A gentleman to see you, Mrs. Adair."
The door opened, and there on the threshold stood her father! His face was white, his eyes morose and sunken, his whole air so formidable that in the first shock of recognition Phyllis could do no more than stare at him in terror.
"May I enter?" he asked, in that deeper intonation of his which he never used except under some special stress. As he spoke he looked about sharply, and with a bristling hostility as though expecting to discover a second occupant of the room.
"Mr. Adair isn't here," she said, answering the silent question. "I am all alone, Papa."
She would have kissed him, but he brushed past her to a chair, and seated himself heavily, laying his silk hat and his gloves on the floor beside him. Thus stalwartly in possession of the chamber, he appeared more formidable than ever, and the deliberate gaze he bent on Phyllis was masterful and menacing.
"So you've gone and thrown away your life," he said at last. "Forgive me, my dear, if I am not able to congratulate you upon it."
"I married Mr. Adair this morning, if that's what you mean." She hardly knew how to say more without adding to her offense. Her father was bound to put her in the wrong whatever reply she made. A terrible hopelessness weighed her down, and crushed the unspoken appeal on her lips.
"Thrown away like that," he repeated, with a gesture. "You, who had everything; you, with beauty, position, money, brains--my God, the folly of it--the cruel, wicked, heartless folly of it!"
"Don't, Papa!" she pleaded. "It's done, and so what's the good of wounding me now?"