"The summer may be like any other summer; but you're not like yourself. I do everything I can to please you, but--"
"You needn't do anything to please me but what you're told."
"I always do what I'm told--when you tell me; but you only tell me by fits and starts."
"Then, I tell you now: you're not to go to the Thoroughgoods'."
"But they expect me. I said I'd go to lunch. They'll think it very strange if I don't."
"They'll think what they please. It's enough for you to know what I think."
"But that's just what I don't know. Ever since Diane went away--"
"Stop that! I've forbidden you to speak--"
"But you can't forbid me to think; and I think till I'm utterly bewildered. You don't explain anything to me. You haven't even told me why she went away. If I ask a question you won't answer it."
"What's necessary for you to know, you can depend on me to tell you. Anything I don't explain to you, you may dismiss from your mind."
"But that's not reasonable, father; it's not possible. If you want me to obey you, I must know what I'm doing. Because I don't know what I'm doing, I haven't--"
"You haven't obeyed me?" he asked, quickly.
"Not entirely. I've meant to tell you when an occasion offered, so I might as well do it now. I've written to Diane."
He strode up to her and caught her by the arm. It was not strange that she should take the curious light in his face for that of anger; but a more experienced observer would have seen that two distinct emotions crowded on each other.
"I've written to her twice," Dorothea repeated, defiantly, as he held her arm. "She didn't reply to me--but I wrote."
"To tell her that I loved her--that no trouble should keep me from loving her--no matter what it was."
He released her arm, stepping back from her again, surveying her with an admiration he tried to conceal under a scowling brow. The rigidity of her attitude, the lift of her head, the set of her lips, the directness of her glance, suggested not merely rebellion against his will, but the assertion of her own. It occurred to him then that he could break her little body to pieces before he could force her to yield; and in his pride in this temperament, so like his own, he almost uttered the cry of "Brava!" that hung on his lips. He might have done so if Dorothea had not found it a convenient moment at which to make all her confessions at once and have them off her mind. It was best to do it, she thought, now that her courage was up.