tiniest boyhood, Father, everything just as you wanted it! Just the
tutors you chose in just the subjects you chose! Everything then that
American colleges could give you! Everything later that European
universities could offer you! And then Travel! And more Travel! And
more! And more! And then--Love! And then Fame! 'Love, Fame, and Far
Lands!' Yes, that's it exactly! Everything just as you chose it! So
your only tragedy, Father, lies--as far as I can see--in just
little--me! Because I don't happen to like the things that you like,
the things that you already have had the first full joy of
liking,--you've got to miss altogether your dimmer, second-hand
glimpse of happiness! Oh, I'm sorry, Father! Truly I am! Already I
sense the hurt of these latter years--the shattered expectations, the
incessant disappointments! You who have stared unblinkingly into the
face of the sun, robbed in your twilight of even a candle-flame. But,
Father?"

Grimly, despairingly, but with unfaltering persistence--Youth fighting
with its last gasp for the rights of its Youth--she lifted her haggard
little face to his. "But, Father!--my tragedy lies in the fact--that
at thirty--I've never yet had even my first-hand glimpse of happiness!
And now apparently, unless I'm willing to relinquish all hope of ever
having it, and consent to 'settle down,' as you call it, with 'good
old John Ellbertson'--I'll never even get a gamble--probably--at
sighting Happiness second-hand through another person's eyes!"

"Oh, but Eve!" protested her father. Nervously he jumped up and began
to pace the room. One side of his face was quite grotesquely
distorted, and his lean fingers, thrust precipitously into his
pockets, were digging frenziedly into their own palms. "Oh, but Eve!"
he reiterated sharply, "you will be happy with John! I know you will!