“Not very new, father.”
“The more reason you should be careful. My bills for finery are big enough in the year. I can do with a suit of clothes for three years; a woman grumbles if she has only three dresses in twelve months. Superlative vanity. Pity we are not born with fur.”
The girl laughed, a laugh devoid of malice or of self-justification. She took the flowers from her basket and began to bind them into posies, her large hands looking very white in the light of the sun. She was unvexed by such economical tirades, having grown as accustomed to her father’s grumblings as to the growling of the sea.
“You ought to be grateful for having only one daughter,” she said, “since I am such a burden.”
“I am,” retorted the man, surlily, burying his face behind the pages of finance.
Supper was laid on the heavy mahogany table by the woman Rebecca. Zeus Gildersedge drew his cane-backed chair before the steaming dish of stew. He ate meagrely himself, but watched his daughter’s plate with a species of perpetual dissatisfaction. Her healthy appetite irritated his more ascetic instincts. It even grieved him to see the last crust filched from the trencher.
It had grown dusk by the time the table had been cleared, and Rebecca, lighting a single candle, set it on Zeus Gildersedge’s table by the window. She was bidden to close the casement lest the draught should waste the wax. The girl Joan was hovering between the bookcase and the door. Her restless vacillation brought a characteristic rebuke from the man by the table.
“Sit down, sit down.”
The girl caught up her hat.
“I’m for the garden.”