“The bills? I don’t know where to find them,” she said, growing suddenly very red, and then very pale.
“Dora!” cried her father, in a warning tone. Then he added, with an attempt at banter: “Never mind the doctor. The doctor is in it; he ought to pay half. We will take his advice. How small a dividend will content our creditors for the present? Make haste, and do not lose any more time.”
Dora stood her ground without wavering. “I cannot find them, father,” she said.
“You cannot find them? Nonsense! This is for my good, I suppose, lest I should not be able to bear it. My dear, your father declines to be managed for his good.”
“I have not got them,” said Dora firmly, but very pale. “I don’t know where to find them; I don’t want to find them, if I must say it, father,—not to manage you, but on my own account.”
He raised himself upright too, and looked at her. Their eyes shone with the same glow; the two faces bore a strange resemblance,—his, the lines refined and softened by his illness; hers, every curve straightened and strengthened by force of passionate feeling.
“Father,” said Dora almost fiercely, “I am not a child!”
“You are not a child?” A faint smile came over his face. “You are curiously like one,” he said; “but what has that got to do with it?”
“Mannering, she is quite right. You ought to let her have her own way.”
A cloud crossed Mr. Mannering’s face. He was a mild man, but he did not easily brook interference. He made a slight gesture, as if throwing the intruder off.