She sank down in an easy-chair. There was a look on her face which plainly said, "Now do your worst; I cannot be more wretched than I am."
"You have promised to marry Sir Keith Macleod?" he repeated, slowly, and fixing his eyes on her face.
He did not break into any rage, and accuse Macleod of treachery or her of filial disobedience. He knew that she was familiar with that kind of thing. What he had to deal with was the immediate future, not the past.
"Yes," she answered.
"Well," he said, with the same deliberation of tone, "I suppose you have not come to me for advice, since you have, acted so far for yourself. If I were to give you advice, however, it would be to break your promise as soon as you decently can, both for his sake and for your own."
"I thought you would say so," she said, with a sort of desperate mirth. "I came to have all my wretchedness heaped on me at once. It is a very pleasing sensation. I wonder if I could express it on the stage. That would be making use of my new experiences—as you have taught me—"
But here she burst into tears; and then got up and walked impatiently about the room; and finally dried her eyes, with shame and mortification visible on her face.
"What have you to say to me, papa? I am a fool to mind what a schoolgirl says."
"I don't know that I have anything to say," he observed, calmly. "You know your own feelings best."
And then he regarded her attentively.