“Is it too cold for you, Father?” said Delia. “We kept on and on expecting you, and wondering whether to send it down to be kept hot. But I was afraid it would get too dry.”
“Your wondering whether to send it down to be kept hot, was not of much good, if you had made up your mind it would get too dry,” said Mr. Bentley. He paused once or twice in his speech, and did not lift his eyes.
“I did not think you would be so long, Father. You were so nearly ready when I passed your room.”
Mr. Bentley gave a casual glance at his daughter. He had done what remained with the utmost slowness, and a bitter sense of lookers-on.
“Take this down, and do me some fresh,” he said to the maid.
“Delia, can we go?” said Harry.
“Ask father if he will excuse you,” said Delia.
“Father, can we go? It is past school-time.”
“If it is past school-time, why did you not ask to go at the proper time? Why ask at all, if not at the right time? And using that ridiculous voice, as if there were some benefit to me in your sitting there! You are here to satisfy your own appetites. Go, of course. I do not want you.”
Mr. Bentley observed his sons as they left the room.
“I have never met a man so unfortunate in his children. Self-conscious, conceited, with the manners of clowns! Sitting there, thinking their society such a benefit, and then the first words they utter to do with themselves! Neither of them taking the trouble to say good morning to me, but speaking fast enough as soon as they wanted to get off to their own pursuits! It is unbelievable.”
“I do not think Harry is well. I think he has one of his headaches coming. I have thought so all breakfast time.”
“And why did you not speak of it, if you saw it? Why did you sit there and take no notice of a child you knew to be ill? Really, Delia, I should not have believed it. It is a hard thing, a hard thing, a hard thing. I may not have done much to lead my children as I would have them go, but my example should not have led them to this. It should not.”
Delia rose and left the room.
Mr. Bentley was about to follow her, when she re-entered, forcing him to pause. He stood with his head and arms so rigid that they shook. Delia edged by him, and stood with her eyes on his face.
“Come, speak, Delia. Do not be mysterious. It is the worst breach of manners. What secret can there be?”
“Can I speak to you, Father?”
“Speak? Of course you can speak. Do get out of this way of making mysteries. Speak, and try to be natural and to the point.”
“John and Harry have come home, Father. They want to speak to you, I think.”
“Want to speak to me! Want to speak! Of all the habits my family has ever had! Call them in, and let them speak, make them speak. I will have no more of it. It makes me too ashamed.”
“Let me pass, will you please, Father.”
“Oh, it is nothing that requires anyone to be put about for it. They have come back because they ‘want to speak,’ I believe. My children are fond of that plea.”
“Father, we must see if anything is the matter with them.”
“Harry! John! Come in at once, and tell your sister what you want with her.”
“Well, what is it that you have to say, that you have come home from school when the morning has hardly begun? Let us hear it, so that you can get back again. I do not like this easy breaking off for any reason that comes to hand.”
“I have a headache,” said Harry. “Mrs. Merry sent us home to tell Delia.”
Delia went out of the room with the boy.
“John, go after your sister, and come back at once, and tell me all about your brother, I must know if I am needed. I will put off my journey today.”
“You will not be needed. Harry did not even want you to be told.”
“Oh, you idiotic, self-absorbed children! Have you not reason to grasp, that it is what is good for Harry that has to be thought of? Can you not bring yourselves to some real concern for your brother? Must you go on, thinking of nothing but how things can be settled for you to see the least trouble? Oh, that I could get you to see it! But I have given it up. As I say, I will give up my journey today. I will be ready to hear what is best to do, and ready to do it.”
John gave a caper.
“You see, John, it is not always an easy thing to bring people to see what is right, when one is at the head of a household where people are fond of going their own way, whether it is the right way or not. It cannot be done, my boy, without much of what must seem to people who do not understand—and my family are people who do not understand, I am sorry to say—to be needless, and even trying. But you will look back upon what your father did, when I am no longer with you, and see that it was not done easily.”
John looked at his father with rising tears.
Mr. Bentley just laid a hand on his head, and went upstairs and stood by himself, repeating his speech with additions which had not occurred to him.
When he went down later, he saw that his daughter had dropped a spoon she had brought from the sick room. He watched her look with a resolve not to help the search, and sat down and opened the paper.
“Well, I have to go on under this fresh burden of anxiety. It is not an
