Colina persisted, "didn't my mother
run away north with you, against the wishes of her parents?"

"Your mother was a saint!" cried Gaviller indignantly.

"Certainly," said Colina coolly, "but not the psalm-singing kind. What
do you expect of the child of such a couple?"

"Not another word!" cried Gaviller, banging the table--last refuge of
outraged fathers.

Colina was unimpressed. "Now you're simply raising a dust to conceal
the issue," she said relentlessly.

Gaviller chewed his mustache in offended silence.

Colina did not spare him. "Do you think you can make your child and
hers into a prim miss, to sit at home and work embroidery?" she
demanded. "Upon my word, if I were a boy I believe you'd suggest
putting me in a bank!"

John Gaviller helped himself to another egg with great dignity and
removed the top. "Don't be absurd, Colina," he said with a weary air.

It was a transparent assumption. Colina saw that she had reduced him
utterly. She smiled winningly. "Dad, if you'd only let me be myself!
We could be such pals if you wouldn't try to play the heavy father!"

"Is it being yourself to act like a harum-scarum tomboy?" inquired
Gaviller sarcastically.

Colina laughed. "Yes!" she said boldly. "If that's what you want to
call it? There's something in me," she went on seriously. "I don't
know what it is--some wild strain; something that drives me headlong;
makes me see red when I am balked! Maybe it is just too much physical
energy.

"Well, if you let me work it off it does no harm. If I can ride all
day, or paddle or swim, or go hunting with Michel or one of the others;
and be interested in what I'm doing, and come home tired and sleep
without dreaming--why everything is all right. But if you insist on
cooping me up!--well, I'm likely to turn out something worse than
harum-scarum, that's all!"

Gaviller flung up his arms.

"Really, you'll have to go back to your aunt," he said grimly. "The
responsibility of looking after you is too great!"

Colina laughed out of sheer vexation. "The silly ideas fathers have!"
she cried. "Nobody can look after _me_, not you, not my aunt, nobody
but myself! Why won't you understand that! I don't know exactly what
dangers you fancy are threatening me. If it is from men, be at ease!
I can put the fear of God into them! It is the sweet and gentle girl
you would like to have that is in danger there!"

"I'm afraid you'll have to go back," said Gavill