“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.”
“I did not mean to insult my sister,” cried Constance, springing to her feet. “She is so well brought up, that she accepted whatever you chose to say to her, forgetting that she was a woman, that she was a lady.”
Waring’s face grew scarlet in the darkness. “I hope,” he said, “that I am incapable of forgetting on any provocation that my daughter is a lady.”
“You mean me!” she cried, breathless. “Oh, I can——” But here she stopped. “Papa,” she resumed, “what good will it do us to quarrel? I don’t want to quarrel. Instead of setting yourself against me because I am poor Con, and not Frances, whom you love—— Oh, I think you might be good to me just at this moment; for I am very lonely, and I don’t know what I am good for, and I think my heart will break.”
She went to him quickly, and flung herself upon his shoulder, and cried. Waring was perhaps more embarrassed than touched by this appeal; but after all, she was his child, and he was sorry for her. He put his arm round her, and said a few soothing words. “You may be good for a great deal, if you choose,” he said; “and if you will believe me, my dear, you will find that by far the most amusing way. You have more capabilities than Frances; you are much better educated than she is—at least I suppose so, for she was not educated at all.”