“Oh, certainly.” From the door he glanced back at Barbara, and she saw that his face was clouded with apprehension.
While she was wondering what it all meant, and what her father could have to say to Philip, there drifted in to her the murmur of their lowered voices, coming from the room that had conferred upon it the name of library in recognition of the fact that its furniture consisted in the main of a desk, some leather-covered chairs given over to decay, and a bookcase, containing an encyclopedia, a dictionary, and by actual count ninety-six novels. The room was also adorned—as the complete triumph of intellectuality—by a bust of Shakespeare.
Here Mr. Gerard was supposed to do his thinking.
Barbara's mother was an invalid and seldom left her room. This was another tangle in the snarled arrangement of Philip's hopes, for Barbara's father had severe Spartan ideas on the duties of children to their parents. And Mrs. Gerard was so busy with her symptoms, real or imaginary, that she never concerned herself in domestic matters. She left all that to her husband, who ran things with a high and often heavy hand.
Barbara controlled her curiosity as best she could. Finally the conference was at an end. She heard her father remark in his ordinary strident tones:
“You appreciate the justice of my course, Philip.”
A few minutes later, Philip reentered the parlor.
“What is it?” she asked quickly.
He crossed the room and stood leaning against the mantel, looking down at her in silence.
“What is it, Philip?” she repeated.