ntonation of significance,
it seemed to Thornhill that the girl read his thoughts, his intent.
She, like himself, could school her face, yet not altogether. Its
expression now seemed to reveal horror, loathing, repulsion--yet not for
Manamandhla. Reading it, something moved him to say:

"I have been thinking things over, Edala, and perhaps, after all, I can
see my way towards letting you carry out your cherished wish--that of
going to Europe to study art seriously. You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

She made no answer. He had expected her to brighten up at the
suggestion.

"You are not happy here, and I--well perhaps I am getting more than a
little tired of living in an atmosphere of chronic suspicion and
repulse. And yet, child, the time may come--and come too late--when you
will bitterly regret the care of a father who has been to you as very
few fathers within my experience have ever been to their children--in
fact, I can hardly recall the case of one. But there--ingratitude is
only to be expected, in fact nothing else could be under all the
circumstances."

This with intense bitterness. His self control had momentarily broken
down. The girl, who had begun to soften, grew hard again.

"I don't know that I've anything to be so thankful and appreciative
over--under all the circumstances," she said, with a scathing emphasis
on the echo of his words. He looked at her fixedly, sadly.

"Not now, but that will come. That will come--perhaps when it is too
late."

His tone was quiet, and there was a sad conviction of prophecy in the
words that again softened her--almost frightened her--as he turned away.
In a moment a huge impulse moved her to go after him and declare that
she had no wish whatever to leave him; that she would give no thought in
the world to any consideration but himself; that she had been horribly
hard and ungrateful and selfish; but assuredly some demoniacal influence
was floating in the air just then, for the impulse passed. And her
father, too, was striving to harden his heart. Why not? A man never
ceased to gain in experience of life and human nature even if he lived
to a hundred; and he himself was only in his prime. Why then break his
heart over that which was only to have been expected?

By an effort he dismissed the subject from his mind. The latter then
reverted to the subject of Manamandhla, and the result of his
meditations boded no good to that ill-advised Zulu.

CHAPTE