“You see how anxious our friend is about my health, Winnie; he does not care half so much for yours, and you are a deal more liable to take cold than ever I was. You take that from your mother, who was always a feeble creature. The stamina is on the Chester side. Very well, doctor, very well. I don’t like the wet any more than you do. I’m going in, don’t be afraid. Dinner at seven, sharp, and don’t keep us waiting.”
Mr. Chester’s laugh seemed to the young pair to mean much; the very wave of his hand as he turned away, his insistance upon the hour of dinner, all breathed of fate. The two young people exchanged one look as they shook hands; on his side it was a look at once of encouragement and entreaty—on hers of terror and wistfulness. She was afraid and yet anxious to be left alone with her father. It seemed to Winifred that she could bear what he said to herself, however painful it might be, but that an insulting dismissal of Edward was more than she could bear. She could not linger, however, nor say a word to him beyond what ordinary civility required. Even the momentary pause did not pass without remark.
“Some last words?” Mr. Chester said; “one would think you had seen enough of each other. You should make your appointments a little earlier in the day.”
“It was no appointment, papa. I was walking, and Dr. Langton came up in his dog-cart.”
“Oh, very likely; these things fall in so pat, don’t they? I suppose I am past the age for encountering people in dog-carts just when I want them. But you must not calculate too much on that,” he said with a laugh. “There’s no reason why I shouldn’t marry and provide myself with another family, that might be more to my mind than you.”
To this Winnie made no reply. The threat had offended her on other occasions; now it affected her with that dreadful sense of the intolerable to which words can give no expression; it brought the blood in a rush to her face, and she looked at him in spite of herself with eyes in which pity and horror were mingled. He met her look with a laugh.
“You are horrified, are you? That’s all very well for you; but let me tell you, many an older man than I, and less pleasing, perhaps, has got a pretty young wife before now. It has to be paid for, like every other luxury; but women are plenty, my dear, though you mayn’t think so.”
“Papa, do you think this is a subject to discuss with me?”
“Why not? You are the only one except myself that would be much affected by it. It might interfere with your comforts, and it would interfere very much with your importance, I can tell you, Miss Winnie.”
“Then, father,” the girl said, “for Heaven’s sake do it, and don’t talk of it any more. Rather that a thousand times than to be forced to agree to what I abhor, than to be put in another’s place, than to have to give up”—