Page:Dorothy Canfield - Rough-hewn.djvu/330

 display of feeling by affirming stolidly, "Well, I won't get it."

"But you don't see any other chance for her."

He felt that she was taking an unfair advantage of a chance lapse on his part and, dismayed and disgusted by the pious color of their talk, was pointedly silent, conveying the impression that he was trying to command his patience till she should consent to stop talking foolishly.

"Marise isn't a bit old," she pointed out, half to herself, half to him. "She's just seventeen to-day. And she's not plain, either."

"You bet your life she's not. That's why I know what her music is going to do to her!"

"Well, for goodness' sakes, why take her out of college to go on with it?"

He evidently felt that he had more than explained this, for he made no answer. She said then, a very plain, human anxiety wrinkling her old face, "Do you honestly think, Horace, that you are the right person to bring up a pretty, seventeen-year-old girl?"

"As good as anybody else," he said drily, averring the complete incompetence of all the world for that task.

"But she is getting on so well at college—she stands so high—and the youngest in her class. She is so bright."

"Oh, that hasn't anything to do with her being bright. That comes from the schooling she's had in France. She learned to keep at whatever she was doing till she got it right.—Lord—the sloshy work in an American college—as easy as sliding down hill for her. She may or she may not have a good mind. She's learned to work, that's all."

"That's what you're going back for, because of good work," stated Cousin Hetty.

"Oh, I'm not expecting to do any of it myself," he enjoyed his usual satisfaction in making no pretense to virtue, "but I like being able to hire other folks for a nickel or two, to work like that. And I like being able to hire other folks to make it their business to keep me comfortable. And don't forget the cooking. And the wine. And the beds. There's not a decent bed in America."