Beatrice's heart was very full. She had done it for his sake, but she found it impossible to tell him. She had been content enough until he had come, and was dissatisfied with her. His words hurt her cruelly. Presently she found her voice:
"I was trying to look like Adele," she told him tearfully.
"You were?" Struck by something in her tone the scientist glanced at her more closely. He saw that she was not eating anything, and that she was trembling. His manner softened. Bee was aware of the change instantly, and attributed it to the mention of her cousin. Her tears dried, and she was shaken with sudden anger.
"Your cousin is a beautiful girl, Beatrice. She seems to be as lovely in disposition as in person. I do not at all wonder that you desire to be like her, but your manner of emulation has not been the most happy. Perhaps I spoke too severely. We are all prone to error, and I should not judge too harshly what, it seems, has been done from a worthy motive. If you wish to be like Adele, strive to copy her character rather than to imitate her outward appearance. Beauty of soul is the thing that counts. Before a sweet disposition and a well informed mind mere physical beauty palls."
"That is not true," burst from Beatrice; "and you know it."
"Beatrice Raymond, do you know to whom you are speaking?" The naturalist dropped his knife and fork, and stared at his daughter in amazement.
"Yes, I do;" answered Bee, wrought up to such a pitch that she forgot the respect and deference due her father. If the mere mention of her cousin's name had such influence upon him, she would let him know how she felt about it; so she continued wrathfully: "You and Aunt Annie, and everybody, are fond of talking about the cultivation of the mind and spirit being above beauty, but you don't practice what you preach. Look at what you have been saying, and then think of how you have treated me."
"Why, why," stammered Doctor Raymond, so surprised by this vehement outburst that he scarcely knew what to say.
"You were away ten long, long years," went on Beatrice, almost beside herself with passion; all her pent-up unhappiness clamoring for utterance. "I was just crazy for you to come home. Other girls had their fathers and I wanted mine too. When you wrote that you were coming I was happy; as happy as a bird. You had written that you wished my mind cultivated, and I studied hard to please you. I knew that you were a learned man, and I wanted to be able to talk to you intelligently. You wanted me to learn to be a good housekeeper, and that, too, I studied. I have tried to do everything that you wished me to. You say that you are disappointed in me. How do you think that I feel about you? You will have nothing to say to me because I am not Adele. You wanted her for your daughter, and you can't get over it because she isn't. In your last letter to me you said that you thought that I must have a mind of uncommon intelligence. Have I? You have not troubled to find out. What kind of a disposition have I? You don't know. And why? Just because I don't happen to be pretty. 'Sweet disposition and well informed mind' are all very well to talk about, but when it comes right down to real truth a girl might as well be dead if she isn't pretty."
"You are giving me a terrible arraignment, Beatrice," observed her father gravely. "Really, I—"