Part 36 (1/2)
”I do not acknowledge it, ma'am.”
”You must give her line, Charles,” mamma said, half laughing but vexed. ”She is a woman.”
”I hope she will grant me forgiveness,” he said. ”She must remember, I _thought_ I had liberty.”
”I shall not forget,” I answered. ”I understand, that respect for me failed before respect for my mother.”
”But! -” he began.
”Be quiet, Charles,” my mother interrupted him. ”Pull us to sh.o.r.e; and let fits of perverseness alone till they go off.
That is my counsel to you.”
And the remainder of our little voyage was finished in profound silence. I knew mamma was terribly vexed, but at the same time I was secretly overjoyed; for I saw that she yielded to me, and I knew that I should have no more trouble with Mr.
De Saussure.
I did not. He lingered about for a few days longer, in moody style, and then went away and I saw him no more. During those days I had nothing to do with him. But my mother had almost as little to do with me. She was greatly offended; and also, I saw, very much surprised. The woman Daisy could not be quite the ductile thing the child Daisy had been. I took refuge with papa whenever I could.
”What is all this about De Saussure and Marshall?” he asked one day.
”They have both gone home.”
”I know they have; but what sent them home?”
”Mamma has been trying to make them go, this long while, you know, papa. She wanted them to go and join Beauregard.”
”And will they? Is that what they are gone for?”
”I do not know if they will, papa. I suppose Mr. De Saussure will.”
”And not Marshall?”
”I do not know about him.”
”What did _you_ do, Daisy?”
”Papa - you know I do not like the war.”
”How about liking the gentlemen?”
”I am glad they are gone.”
”Well, so am I,” papa answered; ”but what had you to do with sending them home?”
”Nothing, papa, - only that I unfortunately did not want them to stay.”
”And you could not offer them any reward for going?”
”Papa, a man who would do such a thing for _reward_, would not be a man.”
”I think so too, Daisy. Your mother somehow takes a different view.”