“I’ll come and sit with my work in a corner, and be there if he wants anything.”
Mr. Mannering did not seem to take any notice, but he heard the whisper at the door.
“There is no occasion for any one sitting with me. I am quite able to ring if I want anything.”
“But, father, I don’t want to go out,” said Dora.
“I want you to go out,” he said peremptorily. “It is not proper that you should be shut up here all day.”
“Let me light the candles, then, father?”
“I don’t want any candles. I am not doing anything. There is plenty of light for what I want.”
Oh, what despair it was to have to do with a man who would not be shaken, who would take his own way and no other! If he would but have read a novel, as Dora did—if he would but return to the study of his big book, which was the custom of his life. Dora felt that it was almost wicked to leave him: but what could she do, while he sat there absorbed in his thoughts, which she could not even divine what they were about?
To go out into the cool evening was a relief to her poor little exasperated temper and troubled mind. The air was sweet and fresh, even in Bloomsbury; the trees waved and rustled softly against the blue sky; there was a young moon somewhere, a white speck in the blue, though the light of day was not yet gone; the voices were softened and almost musical in the evening air, and it was so good to be out of doors, to be removed from the close controlling atmosphere of unaccustomed trouble. “Out of sight, out of mind,” people say. It was very far from being that; on the contrary, it was but the natural impatience, the mere contrariety, that had made the girl ready to cry with a sense of the intolerable which now was softened and subdued, allowing love and pity to come back. She could talk of nothing but her father as she went along the street.
“Do you think he looks any better, Miss Bethune? Do you think he will soon be able to get out? Do you think the doctor will let him return soon to the Museum? He loves the Museum better than anything. He would have more chance to get well if he might go back.”