“Have I ever refused you, Alice, the right to say almost everything?”
“No; that you have never done, of course. But what I want to say now is something more than I generally want to say. Of course, it cannot matter to you, papa; but to me it makes all the difference.”
“My dear, you are growing sarcastic. All that matters to you matters a great deal more to me, of course. You know what you have always been to me.”
“I do, papa. And that is why I find it so very hard to believe that you can be now so hard with me. I do not see what I can have done to make you so different to me. Girls like me are fond of saying very impudent things sometimes; and they seem to be taken lightly. But they are not forgiven as they are meant. Have I done anything at all to vex you in that way, papa?”
“How can you be so foolish, Lallie? You talk as if I were a girl myself. You never do a thing to vex me.”
“Then why do you do a thing to kill me? It must come to that; and you know it must. I am not very good, nor in any way grand, and I don’t want to say what might seem harsh. But, papa, I think I may say this—you will never see me Stephen Chapman’s wife.”
“Well, Lallie, it is mainly your own doing. I did not wish to urge it, until it seemed to become inevitable. You encouraged him so in the summer, that we cannot now draw back honourably.”
“Father, I encouraged him?”
“Yes. Your grandmother tells me so. I was very busy at that time; and you were away continually. And whenever I wanted you, I always heard ‘Miss Alice is with Captain Chapman.’”
“How utterly untrue! But, O papa now, you got jealous! Do say that you got jealous; and then I will forgive you everything?”