"To-morrow will do just as well," he answered. "Where did you mean to sleep when you got to London to-night?"
"I should have found a room," she answered.
"Will they send on your luggage if you write for it?"
"Father will," she replied. "Yes, he will do that, but he will not write to ask me to return. He does not care what becomes of me. He never cared what I did when I left his house to fill a situation."
Her nostrils enlarged, her eyes looked angry. A little blood visited her pale cheek. Hardy's memory pictured her father: a middle-sized man with pale, weak eyes, a chuckling laugh like the gurgle of liquor, much reference to his ships and to naval things in general, a large Micawber-like indifference to his existing circumstances, and a quality of talkativeness about outside matters, such as the queen, the trouble at Pekin, the discovery of the North Pole, which would make you think that he did not know what home worries were.
"Bax," said Hardy, "may covertly send along to let them know you are here."
"What of that?" she exclaimed. "If they were to send twenty men they would have to drag me to move me. I would not set foot in that house again if my stepmother lay dead in the gutter opposite the door. It is my father's fault."
She bit her lip, stroked the kitten, and said, "Oh, it is hard upon a girl to have a bad father—a weak, selfish, foolish father."
Here Bax came again with a tumbler full of autumn flowers. He placed them in the middle of the table and went out, looking nowhere, as if he walked in his sleep; but whilst the door lay open they heard the spitting of the frying-pan.
"What are you going to do when you get to London?" said Hardy.