"Nobody could spoil Barry."
"Don't love him too much."
"As if I could."
"I'm not sure," the old man said, shrewdly, "that you don't. And no man's worth it. Most of us are selfish pigs—we take all we can get—and what we give is usually less than we ask in return."
But now she was smiling into the fire. "You gave mother all that you had to give, Dad, and you made her happy."
"Yes, thank God," and now there were tears on the old cheeks; "for the short time that I had her—I made her happy."
When Barry came, he found her curled up in her father's arms. Over her head the General smiled at this boy who was some day to take her from him.
But Barry did not smile. He greeted the General, and when Leila came to him, tremulously self-conscious, he did not meet her eyes, but he took her hand in his tightly, while he spoke to her father.
"You won't mind, General, if I carry Leila off to the other room. I've a lot of things to say to her."
"Of course not. I was in love once myself, Barry."