"I suppose you are out of pin-money?" he interpreted. "Stupid of me not to have realized it, Dollykin, though I sent you rather a good deal to the convent, you remember?" He brought his hand out, filled with silver. "There! Spend it 'not wisely but too well'--not that one need give any girl advice on that subject! Dear, dear, how women can make the money fly!" humorously sighed the Major (whose debts had probably been paid by women ever since he had been old enough to make them).
"I should like a chance," said Joan soberly, "to make the money fly, Father. My money, you know."
She refreshed his memory, flushing. "The money Mother left, with you as guardian--that I was to have whenever I asked--"
"Not that she ever expected such a contingency to arrive!" commented the Major with a sudden accession of stiffness. "You are not of age yet, my child."
"Was there any provision in her will about my being of age?"
"No," he admitted. "Owing to what was of course purely a technical error, I think there was not. My poor Mary was quite unaccustomed to the terminology of wills, naturally, and as she and a servant drew it up between them, you may imagine--" he shrugged indulgently.
Joan moistened her lips. She was finding the interview even more difficult than she had imagined. Her father's manner managed to put her somehow in the wrong. But she held to her purpose.
"I do not think it was an error, Father. Mother wasn't the sort who says things she doesn't mean. I believe she foresaw that--that something might occur which would make me wish to be independent, even if I was not of age. She could trust my judgment a little. She knew that I'd never dream of asking for her property unless I had a good reason--I have a good reason now, Father--I want to be independent." Her voice trailed off miserably. What she really wanted was to put her arms about his neck and have a good cry.
Unconsciously the Major discouraged the impulse. "What is this nonsense about independence?" he demanded. "My dear Joan, you sound like a New Woman!" On his lips the phrase was a scathing denunciation.
Joan explained faintly that she wanted to go away somewhere, to live....
The Major was honestly aghast. "Leave your father's roof?" he cried incredulously. "My child! What is this folly? Never with Richard Darcy's consent shall a daughter of his leave her father's roof except for the roof of her lawful husband." (In moments of emotion, the Major was always liable to these attacks of circumlocution.)