“No, to be sure,” cried Constance. “What ridiculous nonsense I am talking! A savage wilderness! with all these houses about, and the hotels on the beach. I mean—didn’t you feel as if you would like to run violently down a steep place into the sea?” Then she stopped, and laughed. “It was the swine that did that.”
“It has never occurred to me to take that means of settling matters; and yet I understand you,” he said gravely. “You have made a mistake. You thought you were philosopher enough to give up the world; and it turns out that you are not. But you need not cry, for it is not too late. You can change your mind.”
“I—change my mind! Not for the world, papa! Do you think I would give them the triumph of supposing that I could not do without them, that I was obliged to go back? Not for the world.”
“I understand the sentiment,” he said. “Still, between these two conditions of mind, it is rather unfortunate for you, my dear. I do not see any middle course.”
“Oh yes, there is a middle course. I can make myself very comfortable here; and that is what I mean to do. Papa, if you had not found it out, I should not have told you. I hope you are not offended?”
“Oh no, I am not offended,” he said, with a short laugh. “It is perhaps a pity that everybody has been put to so much trouble for what gives you so little satisfaction. That is the worst of it; these mistakes affect so many others besides one’s self.”
Constance evidently had a struggle with herself to accept this reproof; but she made no immediate reply. After a while: “Frances will be a little strange at first; but she will like it by-and-by; and it is only right she should have her share,” she said softly. “I have been wondering,” she went on, with a laugh that was somewhat forced, “whether mamma will respect her individuality at all; or if she will put her altogether into my place? I wonder if—that man I told you of, papa——”
“Well, what of him?” said Waring, rather sharply.
“I wonder if he will be turned over to Frances too? It would be droll. Mamma is not a person to give up any of her plans, if she can help it; and you have brought up Frances so very well, papa; she is so docile—and so obedient——”
“You think she will accept your old lover, or your old wardrobe, or anything that offers? I don’t think she is so well brought up as that.”