FullReads

“I am crying!” she exclaimed angrily. “How unspeakably silly!”

Palmerston’s heart stopped with that nameless terror which the actual man always experiences when confronted by this phase of the ideal woman. He had been so serene, so comfortable, under the unexpected that there flashed into his mind a vague sense of injury that she should surprise him in this way with the expected. It was inconsiderate, inexcusable; then, with an inconsistency worthy of a better sex, he groped after an excuse for the inexcusable.

“You are very nervous–your journey has tired you–you are not strong,” he pleaded.

“I am not nervous,” insisted the young woman indignantly. “I have no nerves–I detest them. And I am quite as strong as you are.” The young fellow winced. “It is not that. It is only because I cannot have my own way. I cannot make people do as I wish.” She spoke with a heat that seemed to dry her tears.

Palmerston sank back and let the case go by default. “If you like that view of it better”–

“I like the truth,” the girl broke in vehemently. “I am so tired of talk! Why must we always cover up the facts with a lot of platitudes?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Palmerston lightly. “I suppose there ought to be a skeleton of truth under all we say, but one doesn’t need to rattle his bones to prove that he has them.”

The girl laughed. Palmerston caught a glimpse of something reassuring in her laugh.

“It might not be cheerful,” she admitted, “but it would be honest, and we might learn to like it. Besides, the truth is not always disagreeable.”

“Wouldn’t the monotony of candor appall us?” urged Palmerston. “Isn’t it possible that our deceptions are all the individuality we have?”

“Heaven forbid!” said his companion curtly.

They drove on without speaking. The young man was obstinately averse to breaking the silence, which, nevertheless, annoyed him. He had a theory that feminine chatter was disagreeable. Just why he should feel aggrieved that this particular young woman did not talk to him he could not say. No doubt he would have resented with high disdain the suggestion that his vanity had been covertly feeding for years upon the anxiety of young women to make talk for his diversion.

“Do you think my father has closed his agreement with this man of whom you were speaking–this Mr. Dysart?” asked Miss Brownell, returning to the subject as if they had never left it.

“I am very certain he has not; at least, he had not this morning,” rejoined Palmerston.

“I wish it might be prevented,” she said earnestly, with a note of appeal.

“I have talked with Dysart, but my arguments fail to impress him; perhaps you may be more successful.”

Palmerston was aware of responding to her tone rather than to her words. The girl shook her head.

“I can do nothing. People who have only common sense are at a terrible disadvantage when it comes to argument. I know it is all nonsense; but a great many people seem to prefer nonsense. I believe my father would die if he were reduced to bare facts.”

“There is something in that,” laughed Palmerston. “A theory makes a very comfortable mental garment, if it is roomy enough.”

The young woman turned and glanced at him curiously, as if she could not divine what he was laughing at.

“They are like children–such people. My father is like a child. He does not live in the world; he cannot defend himself.”

Palmerston’s skepticism rushed into his face. The girl looked at him, and the color mounted to her forehead.

“You do not believe in him!” she broke out. “It cannot be–you cannot think–you do not know him!”

“I know very little of your father’s theories, Miss Brownell,” protested Palmerston. “You cannot blame me if I question them; you seem to question them yourself.”

“His theories–I loathe them!” She spoke with angry emphasis. “It is not that; it is himself. I cannot bear to think that you–that any one”–