Page:Lost Ecstasy (1927).pdf/315

 "What do you mean by that?"

"It's a rather long story." She tried to smile. "I'm tired. Do you mind if I sit down?"

It was characteristic of him, of his type and his breeding, that he came around and drew up a chair for her! But he did not touch her. He was still coldly, acidly polite. He went back behind the desk again.

"Have you left this fellow McNair?"

"I haven't decided."

"Decided! Good God, you're old enough to know your own mind."

"It isn't as simple as that, father."

"Are you going to have a child?"

"No." She colored.

"Have you quarreled?"

She hesitated.

"No. Not exactly that. We differed about some things, but—" She looked up at him with the eyes that were like his father's—"I still care for him. I think you have a right to know that. Only"

"You couldn't get along," he finished for her. "If you hadn't been a headstrong stubborn little fool you'd have realized that before you married him. A cowboy! A ranch hand! What in God's name got into you? And Tulloss! The man's senile; he's losing his mind."

But he controlled himself.

"Before we go any further," he went on coldly, "I'd better make my own position clear. Your mother is ill, critically ill." He stopped, cleared his throat, went on. "I do not believe she will be with us for very long. And I think she needs you. She has needed you badly for some months. At the same time I shall make no pretensions about myself. Your marriage hurt me; it was selfish, reckless and outrageous. For a piece of romantic nonsense you have spoiled Herbert Forrest's life and you have very nearly wrecked my own. You think you have a grievance now, because that marriage has gone wrong. You have no grievance. It was wrong from the start. Some day you will learn that you cannot build happiness on the misery of other people."