GLORIA. You had no right to give me your sister's name. I don't
know her.
CRAMPTON. You're talking nonsense. There are bounds to what I will
put up with. I will not have it. Do you hear that?
GLORIA (rising warningly). Are you resolved to quarrel?
CRAMPTON (terrified, pleading). No, no: sit down. Sit down, won't
you? (She looks at him, keeping him in suspense. He forces himself to
utter the obnoxious name.) Gloria. (She marks her satisfaction with a
slight tightening of the lips, and sits down.) There! You see I only
want to shew you that I am your father, my---my dear child. (The
endearment is so plaintively inept that she smiles in spite of herself,
and resigns herself to indulge him a little.) Listen now. What I want
to ask you is this. Don't you remember me at all? You were only a tiny
child when you were taken away from me; but you took plenty of notice of
things. Can't you remember someone whom you loved, or (shyly) at least
liked in a childish way? Come! someone who let you stay in his study
and look at his toy boats, as you thought them? (He looks anxiously
into her face for some response, and continues less hopefully and more
urgently) Someone who let you do as you liked there and never said a
word to you except to tell you that you must sit still and not speak?
Someone who was something that no one else was to you---who was your
father.
Pages:
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98