“Is he empty-headed?” said Rita, reflectively. “He does not know much, that is quite true; he is not a bit clever; but I think it is a little unjust to call him empty-headed. He was always just himself; he never pretended to anything else. Sometimes he understood—very often he didn’t; but he never pretended, papa. Don’t you think it is a little hard upon him?” she said, turning round upon her father suddenly, and fixing him with her large, serious, impartial eyes. “Don’t you think it is hard to take advantage of what he has said himself, and turn him out like this?”
“I have not turned him out. Rita, this is mere folly. I will not have you led away by your feelings. If any man were to kill me, I believe you would say he didn’t mean it, poor fellow, it would be hard upon him to hang him. Come, child, let us be done with this.”
“But, papa,” said Rita, “there is no evidence against him but his own confession. I have often heard you say that one should not take advantage of that. Kill you—who wants to kill you? There could not be a more different question. I am not led away by my feelings. I have no feelings but right and justice. I don’t think you ought to have taken that advantage of him. It must be very hard upon him, papa, to shut him out. Think! he will have nowhere else to go to. I dare say he spends his evenings in the cafés. He can’t know what to do with himself at nights.”
“As if I had anything to do with his entertainment in the evening! I wish to heaven he had never set foot within my house!”
“Ah! but that is past praying for. I don’t see why you should wish such a thing; but still, if you do wish it, it is a pity, for it is too late. He has set foot within your house, and we have a responsibility about him. We have a responsibility,” said Rita, very gravely shaking her head. “He is young, and he is very simple-minded, and he might, as you are always saying, take a wrong turn; and then whose fault would it be?”
“Not mine,” cried the persecuted man, “certainly not mine—that I’ll swear to. Am I the fellow’s keeper? Rita, for heaven’s sake be done with all that nonsense. If you can talk of nothing more sensible, you had much better go to bed.”
“Yes,” said Rita, calmly, going on with her argument, “you are his guardian in a kind of way, papa. It was you that took him up first. You did it of your own free will, nobody persuaded you. You settled him here, and you opened your doors to him, and said, Come on Sunday, come as often as you please. Do you think you are justified in casting him away now, as if it was of no importance? never thinking where he will go instead, or if he has anywhere else to go to? Do you think you are justified? for no other reason than that you think he might perhaps do or say something you would not like? I do not.”
“Then you think, I suppose, that I ought to have him back and beg his pardon, and tell him he is quite free to make love to my daughter if he likes? Bless my soul! why should I interfere with such a pretty amusement? That’s what you think. Rita, don’t sit there, my dear, talking nonsense: say no more about this young fool, but go to bed.”
“Papa, I am sorry to see you are so deaf to sound argument,” said Rita, with judicial composure; “you always bring in the personal question, as if that had anything to do with it. On the face of it, to deprive a stranger of the benefits you have been heaping upon him, and leave him in a moment to his own resources, all because you are afraid of a distant and unlikely thing he thinks he wants to do, is dreadfully unjustifiable; my dear papa,” said Rita, looking down from the heights of youthful superiority, “I never expected to find you inaccessible to reason, especially on such an important point as this.”
“Inaccessible to fiddlesticks,” the Vice-Consul said; but he was entirely shaken in his conviction of having done what was right and kind, both to one party and the other. He got up and walked about the room. He was a man who wanted moral support; he wanted to be approved of, and to feel that the opinion of those around him went with his. And especially he had learned to prop himself up by Rita’s opinion. He was always uneasy when she differed from him. Even in this matter, which concerned herself, and in which her judgment might justly be doubted, he was not comfortable. He was unfortunately too accessible to reason, so that nothing could be more unjust than this reproach. “Go to bed, my love; go to bed,” he said, faintly. “It is getting very late; another time we can talk of this.”