“I don’t know whether I remembered or not,” I answered petulantly. “I didn’t think it important enough to make a fuss about. You always want me to do everything differently from other people. If I can’t do as other people do, I’d rather not go at all.” “I’m not aware that I told you anything except what would please me,” he answered coldly. “I left you perfectly free.” “How can you call it ‘leaving me free’ when you’re for ever asking me whether I’ve done it? You say you don’t forbid me to do things, but you always talk about them afterwards.” There was a pause. It was broken by my father who seemed now deeply offended. “Did you make any arrangement about going back?” “I promised to go to-morrow, after breakfast.” “What for?” “I was asked to take the Dales somewhere.” “Can’t they find their own way? It isn’t very difficult.” “Does that mean I’m not to go?” “You can’t be always going there. You seem to me to live there.” “It’s easier than living at home,” I muttered. “It is pleasanter, I daresay; but I don’t want you to make yourself a nuisance to strangers.” “Aren’t they the best judges of whether I’m a nuisance or not?” “Well, I don’t wish you to go to-morrow.” “You might have said so sooner,” I burst out. “What reason have you?” “I hope you don’t intend to be as disrespectful as you are,” my father said slowly. “If I had no other reason for not wanting you to go, I should have a very good one in the way it seems to make you behave when you come back. I _have_ another reason, however: I don’t desire you to grow up with an idea that you have nothing to think of in life but your own pleasures. You are quite sufficiently inclined that way as it is.” He spoke quietly, but there was a concentrated feeling behind his words. “What have I been doing?” I asked, trying to be equally calm, though I knew my eyes were bright, my cheeks flushed, and my lips pouting. “I wasn’t alluding to anything particular so much as to your whole way of looking at things. You appear to wish to be absolutely independent, to go out and in just as you please. You appear to think you have no duty to me or to anybody else. You are becoming utterly selfish.”