Nancy returned his gaze without the shadow of a smile. She had come at this man's call from the coldly correct halls of Marypoint College, which was also the soulless home she had been condemned to for the three or four most impressionable years of her life. And she knew the purpose of the summons.
There was a deep abiding resentment in her heart. It was not against this man or his wife. From these two she had received only kindness and affection. It was directed against the stepfather whom she believed to be the cause of the banishment she had had to endure. Furthermore, she could never forget that her banishment was only terminated that she might gaze at last upon the dead features of her dearly loved mother before the cold earth hid them from view forever.
The lawyer understood. He had understood from her reply to his letter summoning her. There was no need for the confirmation he read now in her unsmiling eyes.
"You sent for me?" she said.
Nancy's voice was deep and rich for all her youth. Then with a display of some slight confusion, she suddenly realised the welcoming hand outheld. She took it hurriedly, and the brief hand clasp completely broke down the barrier she had deliberately set up.
"Oh, it's a shame, Uncle Charles," she cried, almost tearfully. "It's—it's a shame. I know. I'm just a kid—a fool kid who hasn't a notion, or a feeling, or—or anything. I'm to be treated that way. When he says 'listen,' why, I've just got to listen. And when he says 'obey,' I've got to obey, because the law says he's my stepfather. He's robbed me of my mother. Oh, it's cruel. Now he's going to rob me of everything else I s'pose. Who is he? What is he that he has the power to—to make me a sort of slave to his wishes? I've never seen him. I hate him, and he hates me, and yet—oh—I'm kind of sorry," she said, in swift contrition at the sight of the old man's evident distress. "I—I—didn't think. I—oh, I know it's not your fault, uncle. It's just nothing to do with you. You've always been so kind and good to me—you and Aunt Sally. You've got to send for me and tell me the things he says, because—"
"Because I'm his 'hired man.' But also because I'm his friend."
The lawyer spoke kindly, but very firmly. He knew the impulsive nature of this passionate child. He knew her unusual mentality. He realised, none better, that he was dealing with a strong woman's mind in a girl of childhood's years. He knew that Nancy had inherited largely from her father, that headstrong, headlong creature whose mentality had driven him to every length in a wild endeavour to upset civilisation that he might witness the birth of a millennium in the ashes of a world saturated with the blood of countless, helpless creatures. So he checked the impulsive flow of the child's protest. He held out his hands.
"You'd best let me take your coat, my dear," he said, with a smile the girl found it impossible to resist. "Maybe you'd like to remove your overshoes, too. There's a big talk to make, and I want to get things fixed so you can come right along up home and take food with us before you go back to Marypoint."
The child capitulated. But she needed no assistance. Her coat was removed in a moment and flung across a chair, and she stood before him, the slim, slightly angular schoolgirl she really was.