Page:Strange Interlude (1928).djvu/254

248

[Peremptorily]

Leave the room! And don’t come near me again, do you hear, until you’ve apologized to Uncle Ned!

[Thinking angrily]

Dad! It’s always Dad with him now!

[Boredly]

Oh, never mind, Nina!

[Going out—mutters]

I won’t ’pologize—never!

[Thinking vindictively]

I hate her too when she sides with him! I don’t care if she is my mother! she has no right!

[He goes out, rear]

[Irritably]

What if he does hate me? I don’t blame him! He suspects what I know—that I’ve acted like a coward and a weakling toward him! I should have claimed him no matter what happened to other people! Whose fault is it if he hates me, and I dislike him because he loves another father? Ours! You gave him to Sam and I consented! All right! Then don’t blame him for acting like Sam’s son!

But he shouldn’t say he hates you.

[Thinking bitterly]