Gulmore, The Boss | Page 3

Hutchings," and she laughed, "will go and help him. We'll see who is--"
Her father interrupted her in the middle of a tirade which would have been complete self-revelation; but it is not to be presumed that he did this out of a delicate regard for his daughter's feelings. He had got the information he required.
"That's all right, Ida. I guess he'll get the lesson. You ken count on me. You've put me on the right track, I believe. I knew if any one could help me, you'd be able to. Nobody knows what's in you better'n I do. You're smarter'n any one I know, and I know a few who think they're real smart--"
In this vein he continued soothing his daughter's pride, and yet speaking in an even, impersonal tone, as if merely stating facts.
"Now I've got to go. Prentiss'll be waiting for me at the office."
While driving to the office, Mr. Gulmore's thoughts, at first, were with his daughter. "I don't know why, but I suspicioned that. That's why she left the University before graduatin', an' talked of goin' East, and makin' a name for herself on the stage. That Professor's foolish. Ida's smart and pretty, and she'll have a heap of money some day. The ring has a few contracts on hand still--he's a fool. How she talked: she remembered all that lecture--every word; but she's young yet. She'd have given herself away if I hadn't stopped her. I don't like any one to do that; it's weak. But she means business every time, just as I do; she means him to be fired right out, and then she'd probably go and cry over him, and want me to put him back again. But no. I guess not. That's not the way I work. I'd be willin' for him to stay away, and leave me alone, but as she wants him punished, he shall be, and she mustn't interfere at the end. It'll do her good to find out that things can't both be done and undone, if she's that sort. But p'r'aps she won't want to undo them. When their pride's hurt women are mighty hard--harder than men by far.... I wonder how long it'll take to get this Campbell to move. I must start right in; I hain't got much time."
As soon as her father left her, Miss Ida hurried to her own room, in order to recover from her agitation, and to remove all traces of it. She was an only child, and had accordingly a sense of her own importance, which happened to be uncorrected by physical deficiencies. Not that she was astonishingly beautiful, but she was tall and just good-looking enough to allow her to consider herself a beauty. Her chief attraction was her form, which, if somewhat flat-chested, had a feline flexibility rarer and more seductive than she imagined. She was content to believe that nature had fashioned her to play the part in life which, she knew, was hers of right. Her name, even, was most appropriate--dignified. Ida should be queen-like, stately; the oval of her face should be long, and not round, and her complexion should be pallid; colour in the cheeks made one look common. Her dark hair, too, pleased her; everything, in fact, save her eyes; they were of a nameless, agate-like hue, and she would have preferred them to be violet That would have given her face the charm of unexpectedness, which she acknowledged was in itself a distinction. And Miss Ida loved everything that conduced to distinction, everything that flattered her pride with a sense of her own superiority. It seemed as if her mother's narrowness of nature had confined and shot, so to speak, all the passions and powers of the father into this one characteristic of the daughter. That her father had risen to influence and riches by his own ability did not satisfy her. She had always felt that the Hutchingses and the society to which they belonged, persons who had been well educated for generations, and who had always been more or less well off, formed a higher class. It was the longing to become one of them that had impelled her to study with might and main. Even in her school-days she had recognized that this was the road to social eminence. The struggle had been arduous. In the Puritan surroundings of middle-class life her want of religious training and belief had almost made a pariah of the proud, high-tempered girl, and when as a clever student of the University and a daughter of one of the richest and most powerful men in the State, she came into a circle that cared as little about Christian dogmas as she did, she attributed the comparative coolness with which her companions treated her,