I was puzzled. What interest had Arthur to lie about the value of Wyncote if it was irretrievably lost to us? As my father ended, he glanced at me with more or less of his old keenness of look, smiling a little as he regarded me. The pause which came after was brief, as I have said; for my reflections, such as they were, passed swiftly through my mind, and were as complete as was under the circumstances possible.
“I am sorry for you,” said Tarleton. “An old name is much, but one likes to have with it all the memories that go with its ancient home.”
“That is true,” said I; “and, if my father will pardon me, I like still to say that I would have Wyncote to-day if I could.”
“Thou canst not,” said my father. “And what we cannot have—what God has willed that we shall not have—it were wise and well to forget. It is my affair, and none of thine. Wilt thou taste some of my newly come Madeira, Friend Tarleton?”
The colonel said “No,” and shortly after left us, my cousin going with him.
My father sat still for a while, and then said as I rose, “I trust to hear no more of this nonsense. Thy aunt and thy mother have put it in thy foolish head. I will have no more of it—no more. Dost thou hear?”
I said I would try to satisfy him, and so the thing came to an end.
The day after this singular talk, which so much puzzled me, Arthur said at breakfast that he should be pleased to go with me on the river for white perch. I hesitated; but, my father saying, “Certainly; he shall go with thee. I do not need him,” I returned that I would be ready at eleven.
We pulled over toward Petty’s Island, and when half-way my cousin, who was steering, and had been very silent for him, said:
“Let her drift a bit; I want to talk to you.”