"
"Didn't you, Louis?" she said, looking hurt. "Why?"
"He'd only think you were a waster. He wouldn't think anyone but a
waster would marry me. If I told him you were a Scotch farmer's daughter
he'd picture something in short skirts, red cheeks and bare legs that
talked like Harry Lauder. Or else he'd think I was lying, and had got
off with a barmaid and wasn't married at all, and was living on some
girl. They'd always think the worst of me, at home. I'm not even going
to tell the Mater--"
She thought for some minutes.
"I don't much care," she said at last. "I think your father's rather a
horrible man, but I may be wrong about him. My impressions of him are
formed from yours, you see. It seems that no one but a most inhuman man
could kick his son out. But then--well, I don't know just how much you
worried him. But I'd have liked you to tell your mother. She looked so
grieved that day on the tender, and she was crying so miserably. I'd
have liked her to know you were taken care of."
"She wouldn't believe it, either, Marcella," he said gloomily. "And you
don't know my Mater. The very fact that you were in the steerage would
make her think you couldn't possibly be any good in the world. If I told
her you cleaned spoons and forks for a steward she'd think you did it
from habit because you'd been someone's servant.
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