“My father is not a good man, my father is not a good man!”
Captain Fordyce stood biting his lip. He was looking down on the sofa in the darkened room where Nina had been lying for a day and a night. At last he said, roughly, “I gave you credit for more spirit, Nina.”
She stopped talking to herself, and rolled her head over on the cushion in his direction.
“It is silly,” he went on, with assumed sternness. “He has forgotten all about you by this time.”
She set her small mouth obstinately. “I cannot help that. It just drives me wild. Oh, ’Steban, ’Steban, why did you let me see him? Why didn’t I stay in America?” and she again hid her white, distressed face.
Captain Fordyce frowned, appeared puzzled, then, coming to a swift conclusion, began rapidly turning out the contents of a chest of drawers on the floor.
The unusual noise disturbed his nervous and suffering wife, and she once more fixed her attention on him. “’Steban dear, please don’t make such a noise.”
“It won’t last long,” he said, firmly. “I am going to Paris.”
“To Paris!” and she straightened herself on her cushions.
“Yes,—have to run over on business,—sorry to leave you, Nina.”