The Cost by David Graham Phillips
page 17 of 324 (05%)
page 17 of 324 (05%)
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Gardiner was smoothing her daughter's turbulent red-brown hair.
"You'll only have to wait under a little more trying circumstances. And if he's right, the truth will come out. And if he's mistaken and John's all you think him, then that will come out." Pauline knew her father was not opposing her through tyranny or pride of opinion or sheer prejudice; but she felt that this was another case of age's lack of sympathy with youth, felt it with all the intensity of infatuated seventeen made doubly determined by opposition and concealment. The next evening he and she were walking together in the garden. He suddenly put his arm round her and drew her close to him and kissed her. "You know I shouldn't if I didn't think it the only course--don't you, Pauline?" he said in a broken voice that went straight to her heart. "Yes, father." Then, after a silence: "But--we--we've been sweethearts since we were children. And--I--father, I MUST stand by him." "Won't you trust me, child? Won't you believe ME rather than him?" Pauline's only answer was a sigh. They loved each the other; he adored her, she reverenced him. But between them, thick and high, rose the barrier of custom and training. Comradeship, confidence were impossible. |
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