“Too late in exerting parental authority.”
“Is he trying to do that?”
“Didn’t you see it?”
“Well, if that was his endeavour, he succeeded.”
“For the moment, yes. He thinks he’s going to talk to her, but it is she who will talk to him, and she preferred doing it this time in the privacy of the room he calls his office. A moment more, and he would have learned her opinion of him before witnesses. I am very glad it did not come to that, but the trouble is merely postponed. Poor old gentleman, I wish I could help him! He does not understand his daughter in the least. But let us go on deck and have coffee there.”
“I was just going to propose that,” I cried, delighted, springing to my feet. We went up the stair together and I placed a little wicker table well forward, with a wicker chair on each side of it, taking a position on deck as far from the companion-way as possible, so that we should not be surprised by any one coming up from below. The Japanese boy served our coffee, and when he was gone Hilda continued her subject, speaking very seriously.
“He does not understand her at all, as I have said. Since she was a baby she has had her own way in everything, without check or hindrance from him, and of course no one else dared to check or hinder her. Now she is more than twenty-one years of age, and if he imagines that discipline can be enforced at this late hour he is very much mistaken.”
“Is he trying to enforce discipline?”
“Yes, he is. He has foolishly made up his mind that it will be for the girl’s good. That, of course, is all he thinks of,—dear, generous-hearted man that he is! But if he goes on there will be a tragedy, and I want you to warn him.”
“I dare not interfere, Hilda.”