“May I trouble you for a little more coffee, Zelda?”
He watched her pour it and add the sugar and cream. They were testing each other in the light of a new attitude that had been established between them, unconsciously on his part, but with studied care on hers. She had felt, for a few days following her morning in the garret, that her position in her father’s house was intolerable; that she could not go on with it. But this had yielded before a new feeling of pride and courage that had risen in her. The message her mother had left—a real testament it was, thrown back from the very shadow of death—wakened in her a sense of duty and obligation that was fantastic. She would not, she said to herself, be less brave than her mother; so she had made her resolve; she would not forsake her father for her mother’s sister and brother; she would be true to the example of her mother, who had suffered much and kept her sorrow to herself.
At twenty we do not look very far ahead; and Zelda Dameron thought it easy to act a part. Her mother’s life had been ruined; her father had the power to make her own life equally a drag and burden; but she would not have it so. She would play her youth against his age, and triumph; and this first encounter between them touching money gave her an opportunity. It was his vulnerable point and she saw that she had reached it. She had heard from her aunt that the estate her father held for her was worth about four hundred thousand dollars; and the income from this was sufficient, she knew, to give her much more than the comforts of life. So she had asked for a thousand dollars as an experiment; and she debated the matter with her father in an amiable spirit of recklessness well calculated to annoy him.
“We were speaking of your allowance,” he began again. “You named a large sum—a very large sum. May I ask what you want with so much? I’d rather pay a certain amount to your credit at the bank every month; but so large an amount—it would be ample for a year, I should say.”
“No,” Zelda began slowly. “I don’t think it would be enough for a year, father. You see, in the first place I must have a decent horse.”
“Eh, what? A horse? Why, we have a very good horse and carriage. The horse is very good. I bought it only a few weeks ago to be ready for your return.”
“Yes, that was nice of you; but I don’t care much for a carriage. I like a runabout that I can drive myself; and a horse—what do you call it, a combination horse—that will do for me to ride, too. I know the ancient in the barn. It isn’t quite up to the mark. I want a horse to ride and drive; and you know a plow horse won’t do for that.”
“But you’d need an attendant,” he went on forbearingly. “A girl can’t ride alone in the city. It wouldn’t be becoming. You’d better give up the idea. There are many other forms of amusement and exercise.”
“Oh, I think I can manage that. Very likely Uncle Rodney will ride with me sometimes. And I’m quite grown up, you know.”
“Your Uncle Rodney, my dear,” he began, and shook his head and smiled in a grieved, sorrowful way. “He’s hardly a good adviser in these things. Rodney is an excellent man, but he’s never had any responsibilities in life. He’s always done exactly what he pleased without consulting any one. You mustn’t let him persuade you into extravagances. He and your aunt are a good deal alike in their wasteful ways.”