I covered my face with my hands, and shrinking over into the corner, I cried:
"Let me out! let me out! You're not my father. Oh, let me out!"
"Why, certainly, child. But I'm old enough, surely, to be, and I wish—I wish I were."
"You do!"
The dignity and tenderness and courtesy in his voice sort of sobered me. But all at once I remembered the face of Mrs. Dowager Diamonds, and I understood.
"Oh, because of her," I said, smiling and pointing to the side where the coupe had been.
My, but it was a rotten bad move! I ought to have been strapped for it. Oh, Tom, Tom, it takes more'n a red coat with chinchilla to make a black-hearted thing like me into the girl he thought I was.
He stiffened and sat up like a prim little school-boy, his soft eyes hurt like a dog's that's been wounded.
I won't tell you what I did then. No, I won't. And you won't understand, but just that minute I cared more for what he thought of me than whether I got to the Correction or anywhere else.
It made us friends in a minute, and when he stopped the carriage to let me out, my hand was still in his. But I wouldn't go. I'd made up my mind to see him out of his part of the scrape, and first thing you know we were driving up toward the Square, if you please, to Mrs. Dowager Diamonds' house.