"Oh, of course, I admit it's very old-fashioned," murmured her father, "very quixotic--very absurd--and altogether what any decent lad would do under the circumstances. And you, of course, will refuse him to the full satisfaction of your own thoroughly modern sense of chivalry and self-respect Nevertheless----" From the half-mocking raillery of the older man's eyes a sudden glance wistful as a caress shot down across the boy's sensitive face and superb young figure. "Nevertheless," he readdressed his daughter almost harshly, "I would to God that _you_ were old-fashioned enough to faint on his neck and accept him!" "Why--why Father!" stammered the girl. "I'm engaged to the--to the English professor at college!" Above the faint flare of a fresh cigarette the man's ironic smile broke suddenly again through shrewdly narrowed eyes. "'Are'? Or 'were'?" he asked. "'Yet', you mean? 'Still?'" [23] "Oh, of course, I know I can't marry anyone now," quivered the girl. "Everything's over--everything's smashed. It's only that--that----" With the hand that had just tossed away a half-burnt match her father reached out a bit abruptly to clasp the boy's fingers. "You hear, Richard?" he asked. "Your offer, it seems, is rejected! So the incident is closed, my boy--with honor to all and 'malice towards none!' Completely closed!" he adjured with a certain finality. "And the little lady----" he bowed to his daughter, "suffers no more--fear--nor ever will, I trust, while her life remains in my keeping." From his pocket he snatched a card suddenly, scribbled a line on it, and handed it to the boy. "I'm going South to-morrow," he smiled. "Daphne and I. To be gone rather indefinitely I imagine. About January send me a line! About your own luck, you know, that farm of yours and everything! It's very interesting!" With faintly forked eyebrows he turned to watch the precipitated parting between the boy and girl--a slender, quivering hand stealing limply into a clasp that wrung [24] it like a torture, blue eyes still baffled with perplexity lifting heavily to black eyes as quick as a bared nerve. "Good-bye!" said the man quite trenchantly. "Good-bye," choked the girl. "Good-bye!" snapped the boy. Then the man and his daughter stood alone again. "There's a bath-room down the hall!" said the man. "And my own room is just beyond. Take a tub! Take a nap. Take--something! I've got a letter to write and don't want any one around!" It was quite evident also that he didn't want any things around, either. The instant his daughter had left him he turned with a single impetuous gesture and swept all the books and papers from his desk. It might have been the tantrumous impulse of a child, or the unconscious urge of the spirit towards unhampered elbow room.