“That’s an excellent point,” he said. “I can’t deny it. What made you so terrifically clever all at once?”
There is nothing more stinging than to be called clever in the midst of a discussion. Bee’s eyes seemed to set fire to her face, at least, which flashed crimson upon her father’s startled sight.
“When one has someone else to think of, someone’s interests to take care of----”
“Which are your own interests--and vastly more important than anything which concerns your father and mother.”
“I never said so--nor thought so, papa--but if they are different from yours, that’s no reason,” said Bee, bold in words but faltering in manner, “is it, why I should not think of them, if, as you say, they’re my own interests, papa?”
“What am I to do if I have no one to speak for me? Papa, Aubrey----”
“I forbid you to speak with such familiarity of a man whom you have nothing to do with, and whom you scarcely know.”
“Papa, Aubrey--” cried Bee, with astonishment.
Colonel Kingsward jumped up from his table in a fury of impatience. “How dare you come and besiege me here in my own room with your Aubrey?--a man whom you have not known a month; a stranger to the family.”
“Papa, you must let me speak. You allowed me to be engaged to him. If you had said ‘no’ at first, there might, perhaps, have been some reason in it.”
“Perhaps--some reason!” he repeated, with an angry laugh.
“Yes, for even then it was not your own happiness that was in question. It was I, after all, that was to marry him.”
“And you think that is a reason for defying me?”
“It is always said to be a reason--not for defying anybody--but for standing up for what you call my own interests, papa--when they are somebody else’s interests as well. You said we might be engaged--and we were. And how can I let anyone, even you, say he is a stranger? He is my _fiancé_. He is betrothed to me. We belong to each other. Whatever anyone may say, that is the fact,” cried Bee, very rapidly, to get it all out before she was interrupted.
“It is not at all a cheerful or pleasant fact--if it changes my little Bee, whom I thought I knew, to this flushed and brazen woman, fighting for her----. Go, child, and don’t make an exhibition of yourself. Your mother’s daughter! It is not credible--to assault me, your father, in my own room, for the sake of----”