"You are not going?" cry I, eagerly, laying my hand on his coat-sleeve, "do not! why should you? there is no hurry. Let me have some one to help me to keep the ghosts at bay as long as I can!" then, with a dim consciousness of having said something rather odd, I add, reddening, "I shall be going in directly, and you may go then."
He reseats himself. A tiny air is ruffling the flower-beds, giving a separate soft good-night to each bloom.
"And what happened to Algy and Barbara?" he says presently.
"Happened? Nothing!" I answer, absently.
"Very brutal of Algy and Barbara, then!" he says, more in the way of a reflection than a remark.
"Very brutal of father, you should say!" reply I, roused by the thought of my parent to a fresh attack of active and lively resentment.
"I have no doubt I should if I knew him."
"He would not let them come!" say I, explanatorily, "for what reason? for none—he never has any reasons, or if he has, he does not give them. I sometimes think" (laughing maliciously) "that you will not be unlike him, when you grow old and gouty."
"Thank you."
"You have no father, have you?" continue I, presently; "no, I remember your telling me so at the Linkesches Bad. Well" (laughing again, with a certain grim humor), "I would not fret about it too much, if I were you—it is a relationship that has its disadvantages."