Philip Hunter was sitting on the edge of the bed, his sketch pad on
his knee. While Flip was drying her hands he was sketching her. She
was used to being sketched at any and all odd moments and paid no
attention. "Father," she prodded him.
At last he looked up from the pad. "She didn't have to come. She
offered to come since it was she who suggested this school, and it was
most kind of her. You're very rude to Eunice, Flippet, and I don't like
it."
"I'm sorry," she said, leaning against him and looking down at the
dozens of little sketches on the open page of his big pad. She looked
at the sketch he had just finished of her, at the quick line drawings
of people in the tram, of Eunice in the tram, of sightseers in the
chateau, of Eunice in the chateau, of Eunice drinking coffee in the
salon of the Montreux Palace, of Eunice on the train from Paris, of
Eunice sitting on a suitcase in the Gâre Saint Lazare. She handed the
pad back to him and went over to her suitcase filled with all the
regulation blouses and underclothes and stockings Eunice had bought for
her; it was so very kind of Eunice. "I don't see why I can't stay with
you," Flip said.
Philip Hunter got up from the bed and took her hands in his. "Philippa,
listen to me. No, don't pull away. Stand still and listen. I should
have left you in New York with your grandmother. But I listened to you
and we did have a beautiful summer together in Paris, didn't we?"
"Oh, yes!"
"And now I suppose I should really send you back to New York to Gram,
but I think you need to be more with young people, and it would mean
that we couldn't be together at Christmas, or at Easter. So in sending
you to school I'm doing the best I can to keep us together as much as
possible. I'm going to be wandering around under all sort of conditions
making sketches for Roger's book and you couldn't possibly come with me
even if it weren't for missing a year of school. Now be sensible, Flip,
please, darling, and don't make it harder for yourself and for me than
it already is. Eunice is right. If you set your mind on being unhappy
you will be unhappy."
"I haven't set my mind on being unhappy," Flip said. "I don't want to
be unhappy."
"Everything's understood, then, Flippet?"
"I guess so."
"Come along down to the dining room, then. Eunice will be wondering
what on earth's keeping us."
3
After lunch, which Flip could not eat, they took her to the station.
Flip's ticket said: _No. 09717 Pensionnat Abelard--Jaman--Chemin de Fer
Montreux Oberland Bernois Troisieme Classe, Montreux à Jaman, valable
10 jours_. Eunice was very much impressed because there were special
tickets for the school.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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