"Of course you are, little girl, but why try? A bad promise is far better broken than kept, and, come to think of it, I am not at all sure that I am anxious to have you keep it. How do you know that I am not making a desperate effort to secure my own release?"
She raised her head quite unexpectedly and caught me with the tears in my eyes. My eyes always were weak. "Why, you are crying!" she said.
"Of course I'm crying. I always cry when I am particularly well pleased. It is a family peculiarity. You should see me at the theatre. At a farce comedy I am a depressing sight, and that is the reason I always avoid the front seats."
Then realizing that I might be carrying my gayety too far, I went on more soberly:
"Can't you see, Phyllis, that the old fool's romance must come to an end? Don't you understand that had I the selfish wish to hold you to a thoughtless promise, our adventure would terminate only in misery to us both? Perhaps you and I have been the last to see it, I, because I was thinking too much of myself, you, because you were carried away by an exalted sense of duty. Thank heaven it is clear to us both now. For it is clear, isn't it, dear?"
The foolish girl did not reply, but she kissed my hand, and it is astonishing how that little act of affection touched and strengthened me.
"So we are going to make a new start and begin right. To-morrow I shall see Frederick and make a proposition to him, and if that rascal does not give up his heroics and come down to his plain duty as I see it—well, so much the worse for him. No, don't raise objections"—she had started to speak—"for I am always quarrelsome when I cannot have my own way. Go to your room and think it over, and remember," I said more gently, for that old tide of the past was coming in, "that you are Sylvia's daughter, and that Sylvia would have trusted me and counselled you to obey me in all things."
Slowly and with averted face Phyllis rose and walked toward the door. I had commanded her, and yet I felt a sharp pang of bitterness that she had yielded so quickly to my words. It seemed at the moment that everything was passing out of my life; that Phyllis, that Sylvia, that all the once sweet, continuous memory was lost to me forever. I could not call her back, and I could not hope that she would return. Philosopher that I was I could not explain the sinking and the fear that took possession of me. The philosopher did not know himself. All his thought and all his reasoning could not solve the simple riddle the quick intuition of a girl made clear.
She had reached the door before she paused. Then she turned. I had risen mechanically and stood looking at her. As slowly she came back and waited as if for me to speak. And when the dull philosopher groped helplessly for words and could not meet the appealing eyes, she put her hands on his shoulders, and laid her warm, young face on his heart, and said, "Father!"