Her father looked at her—flushed cheeks, tear-wet eyes. "Are you in love with him?"
The flush deepened. "I haven't promised—anything—"
"But he's in love with you."
"Yes. But—"
Her father beat his fist on the arm of his chair, "I'm not going to have you in love with anybody. Do you think I am going to let any one take you away from me?"
Hildegarde's breath was quick. "But we don't have to think of that, do we? Crispin isn't coming to marry me. Why, Daddy, he isn't out of college."
"I don't care whether he is in college or out of it. I don't want him coming here. I am not going to ask him as a house guest. You can have him down for an afternoon. That's the best I can do. There isn't a bed for him."
Sampson came in just then with a tray. Hildegarde, helping herself, hardly knew what she was doing. It seemed to her that her father, peppering a poached egg composedly, was a monster of inhospitality. Why, Crispin was her friend, her mother's friend. The one who loved them both.
Sampson left them, and suddenly, almost without her volition, Hildegarde found herself saying, "If Crispin can't come to see me here, I shall go back to the farm."
Through a blinding whirl of emotions she heard her father's violent voice:
"You'll do nothing of the kind."
