“I think I should, if I were you,” she replied stubbornly.
Diane smiled.
“There’s one thing I’ve always loved in you, Fanny, and that’s your loyalty to your friends.”
“Oh, I get that from papa. It’s inherited, and hasn’t any original virtue. I’ve always said that papa would stick up for Satan himself if he happened to be an old acquaintance!”
It gave Diane a feeling of relief to laugh.
“I’m so glad,” she remarked, after a pause, which they spent in arranging the gifts, “that it’s your father who is going to marry us, Fan! I should hate to have a stranger do it. It seems to bring us all so close together, because I know your father loves us.”
“He loves you,” retorted Fanny with unconscious emphasis. “Diane, do you ever think about your father? What will he do when you’re away? Sometimes it seems so strange that we younger ones go off and make our lives as if they hadn’t mothered and fathered us so long.”
“It’s like birds going out of the nest, isn’t it, Fanny? I suppose it’s the law of life—what the scientists call evolution. But I do think of father. I hate to leave him. I shouldn’t leave him, if I didn’t know he would be well cared for. You know old Martha understands just how to cook for him. She knows what he likes better than I do—better, I think, than mama used to know; and old Henry takes care of him as faithfully as Dr. Gerry does. Besides, you’re all so near. It seems to me as if he would be better off. Arthur and I are going into a new land—a land of mist and mirage. I feel”—she was looking across at Fanny without seeming to see her—“that I am indeed setting out on a long journey. I’m taking with me the man who loves me; but I’m not sure—I’m not at all sure what’s beyond the soft, impalpable cloud that hangs like a veil just above the open sea of my dreams!”
Fanny was silent. After a moment Diane turned and went on with her work; but, as she picked up another package, she added in a more natural tone:
“Why don’t you answer me, Fan? Don’t you understand?”