He nodded his head back and forth, with a far look in his eyes that was intended to express spiritual exaltation. It was not Zelda’s purpose to disclose the fact of her visit to his office; she had gone as far as she dared. He had begun to interest her, not so much as a person who had any claim on her affection, but as a curious character—even as an eccentric and untrustworthy character in a story; yet she felt toward him somewhat as a parent may feel toward a deformed child, conscious, indeed, of a moral deformity that fascinated her.
“Yes, of course; I am sure that we want to do right,” she said, with the slightest accent on the pronoun, in imitation of his own manner of the moment before.
When they returned to the living-room he tended the fire; and when he took up his paper nervously, from habit, he put it down again, and began to talk. Almost for the first time since Zelda’s return, he showed an interest in her foreign experiences, and led her to speak of them. And she exerted herself to be entertaining. He had supposed that Mrs. Forrest would prejudice Zelda against him during the years in which she had kept the girl away; but his daily scrutiny had discovered no trace of disrespect or contempt in her attitude toward him.
The striking resemblance between Margaret Dameron and her daughter impressed him to-night; but there were puzzling differences. He was conscious of depths in Zelda that he could not fathom. During her recital of the story of a mishap that had befallen her aunt and herself at a carnival in Rome, it occurred to him that she was showing him this graciousness to-night in the hope of wresting money from him. He lost interest and turned to his newspaper abruptly. Zelda picked up the book she had purchased at Congdon’s shop and fell to reading; and after he had turned his paper restlessly for half an hour, he rose to go to bed.
It had been on her tongue several times to ask him boldly about the debt of Olive’s mother, even if it should be necessary to confess that she had overheard his conversation with Mrs. Merriam; but this might cause an unpleasant scene. No great haste was necessary, she judged; and so she waited. She could probably persuade her aunt or uncle to help her in the matter when the time came, if no other way should occur to her.
“Good night, father!”
She rose and watched him from the room; but he did not look at her again.
“Good night, daughter,” he said, a little vaguely, as though he had forgotten her existence.
No one came and she sat looking steadily at the dying fire. The thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts, says the poet; but their natural habitat should be a realm of light and peace and not dark vales of uncertainty and doubt. When she went at last to her room, the old cedars outside her windows were moaning softly. She found a satisfaction in bolting her door, and then she drew from her writing-table the little book, tied with its faded ribbon, and opened it to the charge her mother had written,—those last pitiful words,—and read them over and over again, until they seemed to be audible whispers in the room:
“Perhaps I was unjust to him; it may have been my fault; but if she can respect or love him I wish it to be so.”