Part 17

"Oh, Papa," she exclaimed in passionate entreaty, "don't, don't! You mustn't! You're degrading me! I--I can't stand it!"

"You know my reasons for wanting you to hear it," he said coldly.

"And you are going to force me to?"

"Yes, I am--for your own good, Phyllis."

As their eyes met something within her seemed to break. In all her life her father had been everything that was kind and gentle and indulgent. His arms had ever been her refuge; she had cried out her baby sorrows on his shoulder; how often, in contrast to other girls, she had thought herself the most fortunate of women to have such a father. Now, in her direst need he was pitiless and inflexible. He was determined to humiliate her with that horrible letter--for his manner, everything, said that it was horrible. To gain his point he was willing to sweep away the fabric of all these years. Oh, the stupidity of it, the cruelty! Nothing could ever be the same again between them after that. He could degrade her, but it would cost him every iota of her love.

Her bosom swelled. Her anger was at so white a heat that she no longer felt the fears and shrinkings that had at first assailed her; her heart beat high, but to another and a fiercer measure.

What a moment for him to begin again: "'You ought to know the goings-on of that girl of yours, and if nobody else--'"

"Papa, Papa!"

"My dear, you must not interrupt me. I insist on--"

"Then let me read it to myself."

He paused, looking at her in indecision; and from her to the coals in the grate. She perceived the meaning of his hesitation, and laughed scornfully.

"Oh, you can trust me," she said, holding out her hand. "Do you want my word, or what? I won't destroy it. Rest assured I shall give you the pleasure of knowing I am reading every word of it."

He resigned it to her, tugging at his mustache, and watching her covertly as she moved nearer the light and began to read. He marveled at her composure, her decision. She was not evading the ugly task--her eyes moved too slowly for that, and her face reflected too clearly the unsparing comments on her behavior.

It was coarse beyond belief. Only a man half out of his wits could have allowed any woman of his family to read such a thing. Many of the expressions she had never heard before, but it is a peculiarity of gross Anglo-Saxon to be readily understood. Nothing was lost on Phyllis, either in the description of the man she loved, or the accusations of the vilest kind leveled at herself. It was an infamous production, soiling and disgusting, nakedly spiteful, and nakedly pornographic.

She perused it unflinchingly to the end; studied the signature, "One who knows," and handed it back to her father.

"I thought people were put in prison for writing such letters," she said in an even voice.

"So they are," he returned curtly, "though that isn't quite the point."

"What is the point?"

"To know how much of it is true."

Again her composure startled him. "Is it possible you believe any of it?" she asked.

"Yes, I do," he said.--He was holding the letter in his hand, like a lawyer in court, cross-examining a witness. He was determined to get at the bottom of all this.

"Is it true you went to the theater twice?"

"As a spectator--yes."

"Is it true that you wrote a letter to him?"

"Yes."

"Is it true you invited him here?"

"Yes, he came once."

"And it's true you met him afterwards on one of the streets in the Richmond district?"