Timidly she protested, "But my mother--and you--"

"Do not speak of your mother! If she were here she would counsel
gratitude and obedience." He turned his back on her. "This is what
comes," he muttered, "of this modernity, this education...."

He pitched away his stub as if he were casting all that he hated
away with it.

She had never seen him so angry. Helplessly she felt that his vanity
and his word were engaged with the general more than she had
dreamed. She felt a surge of panic at the immensity of the trouble
before her.

"But, my father, if you love me--"

"No, my little one, if _you_ love _me_!"

With a sudden assumption of good humor over the angry red mottling
his olive cheeks, he came and sat beside her, putting his arm about
her silently shrinking figure.

"I am a weak fool to stay and drink a woman's tears, as the saying
goes," he told her, "but this is what a man gets for being good
natured.... But, tears or not, I know what is best.... Come, Aimée,
have I not ever been fond of you--?"

He patted her hand with his own plump one where bright rings were
sparkling deep in the encroaching flesh. Aimée looked down with a